c^^ 









"^.o^ 




"%.o^ : 










95. '^o\;-^ <^^^ 95,^'o 









: ^^0^ 




&' . 



^^0^ _ 



















c'i ^ 



^>>^;:nv-^-^ 



.^^ 












^ fc:v,«i 



Q^ ' e ,<. 






V- <5 ft * *< 



M 



a ^<>. 



^^o^ 



.^ .^ 









,^0^ o 



9^, ^o,x 






,^-^^ 







gO\ 



"^.o^ 








































^V ^ 














^0^ 



c^^^^'^^ ^^:^^^ c^^\:'^.'% ,^V^^^ 



<■ 












'^||\)>^* V^ ^ ,._ 






O ' o . x 



0° ^^^-^'^ ^-^L 






^ ^<^ ^Mii ^<^ -lite'" ^ ^ 



-s ^^ 






# -"^^ 



<,S'' -^ 1, Oils *■" ^/'' '"^ "■^ ^3il& * ^^' '^ 










^ ^ I ^ 



^^^^^ 



y 

'..t^ A 



"Q^ ' , ^ "* 



^^i:^ %„ ^ ',^;^^^^. -^^ :>»:^, % ^ r;«ic&^: ^<^ 






















^ 









""^^0^ 



o 



-'m-^.- ^"-^ 



O. ^ » V 










H 9<> o;Vj 



95,'^o, ^ 






^ 



gale 'Bicentennial jaubltcation^ 

With the approval of the President and Fellows 
of Tale University^ a series of volumes has been 
prepared by a number of the Professors and In- 
structors^ to be issued in connection with the 
Bicentennial Anniversary^ as a partial indica- 
tion of the character of the studies in which the 
University teachers are engaged. 

This series of volumes is respectfully dedicated to 

W^z (SraOuates! of t^t tanitjer^it^ 



SHAKESPEAREAN WARS 



SHAKESPEARE 

AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 



WITH AN ACCOUNT OF HIS REPUTATION 
AT VARIOUS PERIODS 



BY 
THOMAS R. LOUNSBURY, L.H.D., LL.D. 

Professor of English in Yale University 



NEW YORK: CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 

LONDON: EDWARD ARNOLD 

1901 



1 



THE HBRARY OF 

CONGRESS, 
Two Coi-ita Received 

OCT. 12 1901 

COPVRIOMT ENTRY 

CLASS Ct XXo. No 
COPY 3. 



Copyright, 1901, 
By Yale University. 



Ptiblished, Odober, iqoi 



UNIVERSITY PRESS • JOHN WILSON 
AND SON • CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A. 



(^9L 



GENERAL INTRODUCTION 

TO THE SERIES 

" Will it do to say anything more about Cliaucer ? " 
It was with this query that one of the most brilliant of 
modern essayists began an article upon that poet. If such 
a man as he could feel hesitation about adding further 
comment to the comparatively little which has been 
made upon the earliest of our great authors, how much 
more ought one far inferior to feel it, when purposing 
to bring out not merely a single volume but a series of 
volumes about the greatest of them all. 

For if there is any belief held by the common consent 
of critics as thoroughly established, it is that Shake- 
speare is a writer about whom can no longer anything 
new be said, — that is, anything which, while being new, 
has also a right to be termed rational. Of new tilings 
which are irrational, we are warranted in asserting that 
the supply will never fail. Probably no other author 
in any speech has indirectly contributed so many illus- 
trations as he to the vast variety of ways in which 
human idiocy manifests itself, whether it take the 
shape of emendation of his language, or of interpreta- 
tion of his meaning, or of the exploiting of every sort of 
fanciful view about his life and writings which perverse 
ingenuity can concoct or addled brain evolve. It seems, 



viii GENERAL INTRODUCTION 

therefore, almost like a renewed assault upon his repu- 
tation and the interest inspired by his works to seek, at 
this late day, to contribute anything more to the accu- 
mulation of matter which has been heaped up by gener- 
ations of scholars, or to repeat in inadequate phrase 
what has already been better said by scores of men pos- 
sessed of keenest insight, of profoundest intellect, and 
of exquisite taste. 

Yet the subject, however worn, continues to retain its 
freshness. In numerous ways Shakespeare has broken 
all literary records ; but it is to be doubted if among his 
many triumphs there is one more striking than the fact 
that, in spite of the best or the worst that men have 
done to make him uninteresting by writing about him, 
his hold upon us has deepened instead of decreasing 
with the course of the centuries. He remains not merely 
an object of reverence to the few, but of intelligent 
curiosity to the many; and that too in a world in 
which the lamentable state of affairs exists, that the 
things we ought to want to know are as a rule very apt 
to be distinct from the things we actually want to 
know. Nor does this general desire to learn all that 
can or cannot be learned about him show the slightest 
sign of abatement. In truth, it is this very interest in 
the dramatist which gives whatever vitality it possesses 
to the theory which denies his existence as a dramatist 
at all. 

But has everything been said about Shakespeare 
which can properly be said? That there are points 
connected with his life and writings which have been 
exhaustively examined and discussed, few will be found 



GENERAL INTRODUCTION Jx 

to deny. Is this statement, however, true of all of 
them ? It may be ignorance, it may be folly, it may be 
presumption, it may be all these combined, but it seems 
to me that there is a field of Shakespearean research 
which, though frequently entered, has never been thor- 
oughly explored. At all events, its story has never been 
fully told. There are controversies affecting the name 
and work of the dramatist which have never been made 
the subject of detailed recital. Some of them were 
going on at the very beginning of his career ; certain of 
them have gone on from that day to this, nor do they 
yet show signs of ultimate subsidence. Even echoes of 
those which may be considered as finally settled still 
continue to fall upon our ears. To all of them there 
have been or are frequent allusions. Scattered episodes 
in the history of some have been given in full. But, 
so far as I am aware, no attempt has been made to 
record in continuous narrative the whole story of these 
discussions ; to bring to \\qw and to contrast the differ- 
ent opinions held about Shakespeare as a dramatist and 
a poet, which at times have come into collision, and to 
trace their varying fortunes ; to give a description of the 
disputes which have been carried on in regard to the 
proper method of settling the text of his works; and 
furthermore, to furnish some slight portrayal of the 
men, whether well or little known, who were concerned 
in these various conflicts, and to relate the precise part 
they took. It is these controversies which it is the aim 
of the present series to chronicle. 

They naturally fall into two distinct and sharply 
defined classes. One of them is limited to the consider- 



X GENERAL INTRODUCTION 

ation of the art^ displayed by the dramatist, the other to 
the methods taken to establish the text of his works 
in its original purity. There are matters of dispute in 
regard to Shakespeare which do not range themselves 
under either of these heads ; but, comparatively speak- 
ing, they are of minor importance. It is the contro- 
versies about the text of the poet which suggested 
originally the general title which has been given to the 
series, and formed the real occasion of its being. It 
soon became apparent, however, that the two classes, 
slight as seemed the relation between them, were after 
all inextricably bound together ; and that in order to 
understand the one completely some knowledge must 
be possessed of the other. The attitude taken towards 
Shakespeare as a writer for the stage affected in the past 
not only the alterations made in his plays, but to some 
extent also the manipulations to which his text was 
subjected, and even the character of the corrections 
proposed or adopted. The consideration, therefore, of 
the controversies of this first class, though in a sense 
entirely independent of those of the second, rose nat- 
urally out of the latter. Accordingly in this series the 
history of the views entertained about Shakespeare as a 
dramatic artist, including as it does the varying esti- 
mates taken of him at different periods, assumes prece- 
dence of controversies on all other topics. 

The discussion of Shakespeare's position as a dra- 
matic artist necessarily involves reference to, or rather 
discussion of, various questions at issue between 
what we now call the classical and romantic dramas. 
Strictly speaking, this should imply a consideration of 



GENERAL INTRODUCTION 



XI 



the differences between the ancient and the modern 
stage, between the French and the English stage, and 
between the practices which have prevailed at different 
periods on the English stage to which playwrights will- 
ingly or unwillingly conformed. The field, however, is 
by no means of this unrestricted nature and extent. 
By classical, it hardly needs to be said, is not meant 
here the Greek or Roman drama, but the modern which 
assumed that title, which professed to be a direct de- 
scendant of the ancient, and was not unfrequently dis- 
posed to believe that it had improved upon its parents. 
Its enemies, on the contrary, have been fond of applying 
to it the term pseudo-classical. Between its methods 
and those of the romantic drama controversy has raged 
with violence for fully tliree centuries. Upon Shake- 
speare, as the chief representative of the latter, the 
brunt of the attack almost from the outset has fallen. 
National feeling has been aroused by it, and there have 
been times when the conflict of opinion threatened to 
assume something almost of the character of an inter- 
national quarrel. 

It is the English sentiment at different times which I 
have sought to portray, and not the foreign, save so far 
as the latter affected the attitude exhibited towards 
Shakespeare by Shakespeare's countrymen. In one way 
the difficulty of this task cannot well be overrated. It 
is never an easy matter to ascertain the prevailing state 
of mind of a whole people in regard to any author or 
subject, even when ample testimony exists for contem- 
poraries in the opinions of all sorts which are put forth 
in profusion by persons occupying various points of 



xii GENERAL INTRODUCTION 

view. Far less easy is it when the evidence transmitted 
from the past is scanty and imperfect, and as a conse- 
quence almost invariably one-sided. In such a case 
there is always special danger of being unduly impressed 
by the little which chances to have come down. Scat- 
tered remarks, of no particular weight in themselves, 
have formed the foundation of many misleading state- 
ments in regard to Shakespeare's popularity at different 
periods. They have had the luck to survive the oblivion 
which has overtaken the others, and frequency of repeti- 
tion has at last conferred upon them among the many an 
authority to which they are not in the least entitled. It 
is only by a full examination of the whole field that we 
can correct the erroneous inferences drawn from the 
assertions of individuals. In particular, it is only by 
the careful study of the critical writings, now often 
deservedly forgotten, of the men who took part in the 
controversies which went on between the adherents of 
the two dramatic schools, that we can get any real in- 
sight into the nature of the conflicting views which were 
held from time to time in regard to Shakespeare. 

One exception there is to the statement that this work 
does not pretend to deal directly with foreign opinion. 
It is in the case of Voltaire. This author occupies a 
most conspicuous position in the controversies that took 
place in regard to Shakespeare's dramatic art ; and in 
the varying views entertained about it, the words he 
said, and the influence he exerted not only on the Con- 
tinent but in England itself, can never be disregarded. 
It was my original intention to make the part he played 
the subject of a chapter in the present volume. But the 



GENERAL INTRODUCTION xiii 

mass of matter accumulated speedily rendered it mani- 
fest that it could not be satisfactorily compressed in so 
short a space. For Voltaire not only affected the opin- 
ions of others in regard to Shakespeare, his own reputa- 
tion in turn suffered in the reaction which his hostile 
criticism of the poet provoked. No small share of the 
derogatory opinion expressed of him in England was 
due not so much to his attacks on theological belief as 
to his attacks on Shakespeare. The feeling showed 
itself early and grew in strength as time went on. For 
the adequate representation both of his own state of 
mind, and of the state of mind in reference to himself 
which he called into being, a separate treatise became 
indispensable. 

So much for the controversies belonging to this first 
class. It was to those of the second, as has been said 
already, that the title of Shakespearean Wars was in- 
tended to be applied. These deal generally with the 
efforts to establish the text of the dramatist and with 
the linguistic and literary quarrels to which they have 
given rise. There was, however, enough of bitterness 
displayed in the controversies about his art to make 
the title not inappropriate to them also. Still, as the 
discussion was here mainly of general principles, it had 
nothing of the virulence which inevitably attends the 
discussion of words and meanings. The quarrels of 
Shakespearean critics and commentators have left en- 
during records of themselves in English literature. In 
them have been engaged some of the greatest authors of 
our speech, and for that reason, if not for themselves, 
they must always be of interest to educated men. 



xiv GENERAL INTRODUCTION 

The moment, in truth, we take up the story of the 
settlement of Shakespeare's text, we are entering into a 
region of peculiarly embittered controversy. The odium 
2?hilologicum has always worthily maintained its place 
alongside of the odium theologicum as a grand fomenter 
of the evil passions which assail the human heart. Per- 
haps, indeed, unsoundness on a point of etymology or 
syntax may be rightly deemed by the judicious to 
betoken on the whole a profounder depth of depravity 
than unsoundness on a point of doctrine or church dis- 
cipline. At all events, I doubt if in the house occupied 
by the odium pMlologicum there is a mansion roomier 
and fouler than that given up to the odium Slialcespearea- 
num. Jealousies have been awakened by it and long- 
continued friendships broken ; unfounded calumnies 
have been spread abroad which have never ceased to 
follow their unhappy victim ; and the course of its whole 
history is strewn with the wrecks of reputations which, 
when not wrought by personal wrongdoing, have been 
occasioned by revenge, envy, malice, hatred, and all 
uncharitableness. 

Of these quarrels of Shakespeare's commentators and 
critics it has always been the correct thing to express 
disapprobation, when it has not been the object to 
satirize. Speaking for myself, I am far from look- 
ing upon them as the unmixed evil which it is the 
fashion to regard them as being. Critics and commen- 
tators, indeed, would rarely be selected as constituting 
the ideal of a happy family. It is not from such a nest 
of hornets that one expects to gather honey. But if 
sweetness does not come from that quarter, penetration 



GENERAL INTRODUCTION xv 

frequently does. Few, in truth, appreciate the incalcu- 
lable services which have been wrought by wrath in 
behalf of the advancement of learning. Love of an 
author will do much to promote inquiry and stimulate 
research ; but in the case of no commentator will it ever 
operate with its fullest efficiency save when it is rein- 
forced by a hearty hatred of another commentator, and 
a hearty contempt for the ridiculous opinions which he 
has seen fit to express. As little in the mental as in the 
material world can light exist without heat. At least 
this has been true of the past ; and there seems little 
reason to think that it will be otherwise in the im- 
mediate future. When in the physical world some 
instrumentality shall have been devised which will 
illuminate and at the same time not burn, then we may 
have faith that in the intellectual and spiritual worlds 
men will learn to perform not merely the comparatively 
easy duty of loving their enemies, but the much harder 
task of bearing patiently with and even forgiving the 
imbecility which puts an interpretation upon an author's 
words and ideas entirely different from their own. 

On this very point one announcement it is desirable 
to make. In no volume of this series shall I attempt to 
carry the account of these controversies down later than 
the beginning of the nineteenth century. It is a natural 
termination. No sharp dividing line exists, it is true, 
between periods in which belief in one thing ceases and 
belief in another begins. But with the close of the eigh- 
teenth century the old faith and the old assertions about 
Shakespeare's dramatic art may be said, in a general way, 
to have gone out ; with the beginning of the nineteenth 



xvi GENERAL INTRODUCTION 

the new and now reigning faith came in. A statement 
not essentially dissimilar may be made in regard to the 
history of the text. In respect to its treatment there is 
a marked contrast between the general critical attitude 
of the two centuries. The general critical attitude, I 
say; for in both there are particular exceptions. But 
with this limitation it is correct to state that with the 
eighteenth century disappeared the violent treatment to 
which the language and versification of Shakespeare had 
been subjected ; the calm assumption of editors that the 
transmitted text was a sort of dead substance, upon 
which they could operate at will, adding to it or reject- 
ing from it or cutting it up in any way that suited their 
own pleasure. Such practices, to be sure, continue still ; 
but they no longer continue to be looked upon with 
respect, still less with approval. 

A specific statement I may be permitted to make in 
regard to my own treatment of certain phases of the 
subject. I have studiously refrained from resorting to 
comparisons between Shakespeare and the great dram- 
atists of other nations, whether of ancient or modern 
times, so far as the degree of their achievement is con- 
cerned. In the history of opinion there is naturally 
frequent occasion to recount utterances of such a 
nature made by others. But comparisons of this sort, 
even when coming from men of highest genius, seem to 
me, as a general rule, to belong to criticism of a pecul- 
iarly valueless type. The cases are extraordinarily few 
in which they can be considered at all adequate ; for 
the knowledge possessed by any one man of two con- 
trasted authors is rarely equal as regards both, nor are 



GENERAL INTRODUCTION xvii 

the conditions the same which give him the means and 
capacity to appreciate each fully. Furthermore, such 
comparisons almost always reflect national prejudices 
when they do not personal tastes. Something of the 
same reticence I have observed in the discussion of the 
different methods employed by different dramatists, 
though this is a matter which falls legitimately within 
the province of the work, and is indeed essential to its 
completeness. No one, in fact, can write a treatise of 
this kind without having very definite opinions of his 
own upon the questions in dispute. It is right to give 
them, for they indicate to the reader the author's point 
of view. Still the expression of them here is inci- 
dental, not specifically designed. This is to say that 
the work is primarily a history of critical controversy, 
and not itself a critical estimate. 

One further remark. The separate volumes of this 
series are intended to form complete works in them- 
selves, so far as the particular subject is concerned. To 
all of them belongs the unity of a common interest ; but 
each of them will constitute a treatise entirely indepen- 
dent of the others. The next volume to appear will 
have for its title "Shakespeare and Voltaire." 



CONTENTS 

Chapter Page 

I. The Dramatic Unities — I 1 

II. The Dramatic Unities — II 37 

III. The Dramatic Unities — III 87 

IV. The Intermingling of the Comic and the 

Tragic 129 

V. Representations of Violence and Blood- 
shed 174 

VI. Minor Dramatic Conventions 209 

VII. Late Seventeenth-Century Controversies 

ABOUT Shakespeare 257 

VIII. Alterations of Shakespeare's Plays . . . 293 
IX. Conflicting Eighteenth-Century Views about 

Shakespeare 339 

X. Shakespeare as Dramatist and Moralist . 379 

Bibliography 419 

Index 437 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC 
ARTIST 

CHAPTER I 

THE DRAMATIC UNITIES 
I 

" He said that Shakespeare wanted art." This is the 
criticism of his great contemporary which Drummond of 
Hawthornden gives us as having come from Ben Jon- 
son. There is no reason either for doubting that the 
man who reported the words reported them correctly, or 
that the words themselves correctly represented the be- 
lief of the one to whom they were attributed. In 1618 
Jonson had made a journey to Scotland. While there 
he visited Drummond at his estate of Hawthornden. 
His host, who anticipated Boswell's conduct, though 
without Boswell's feelings of reverence, took notes of 
the conversation of his guest. Among the remarks of 
the latter were numerous comments upon his contempo- 
raries, uttered with great freedom. The sentence quoted 
above expressed from one point of view his opinion of 
Shakespeare. 

It was an opinion which with more or less of modifi- 
cation prevailed till within a hundred years past. In 
accordance with it the two great dramatic writers of the 
Elizabethan period were long regularly differentiated. 
The literary criticism of the seventeenth and eighteenth 
1 1 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

centuries with almost wearisome iteration depicts Jonson 
as the representative of art and Shakespeare as the repre- 
sentative of nature. This perhaps did not come to be 
the universally accepted estimate till after the Res- 
toration. Still, the distinction, if not fully formulated 
before that time, was in process of formation. It may 
not be absolutely implied in the well-known reference 
in ' L'Allegro ' to the " native woodnotes wild " of 
Shakespeare and the " learned sock " of Jonson. But 
in Milton's lines prefixed to the folio of 1632 there can 
be little question that, in asserting that the former 
writer's ease of composition was to the shame of slow- 
endeavoring art, the great Puritan poet had also the 
latter writer in mind. At any rate, as time went on, 
this distinction cropped out more and more in the criti- 
cal judgments which contrasted the two men. Thus, 
in the commendatory verses to Fletcher, which were 
prefixed to the Beaumont and Fletcher folio of 1647, 
Sir John Denham assumes this difference between them 
as an accepted fact. As was proper in such a place, 
he gave to the poet he was celebrating the credit of 
having united in himself the varying merits of the 
two. But the characteristics which common consent 
had attributed to each are plainly marked in the follow- 
ing lines : — 

" When Jonson, Shakespeare and thyself did sit, 
And swayed in the triumvirate of wit, — 
Yet what from Jonson's oil and sweat did flow, 
Or what more easy nature did bestow 
On Shakespeare's gentler muse, in thee full grown 
Their graces both appear, yet so that none 
Can say here nature ends and art begins." 
2 



THE DRAMATIC UNITIES 

All through the following century this same view was 
expressed. Jonson's art, Shakespeare's nature, turn up 
almost as regularly as their names are mentioned in crit- 
icism. It was echoed and re-echoed by scores of persons 
who had the dimmest possible conception of what was 
meant by the words they were saying. How com- 
pletely this method of characterizing the two men had 
become the merest commonplace we find indicated by 
Pope in his epistle ' To Augustus,' which came out a 
little less than a hundred years after the utterance of 
Denham that has just been given. 

" In all debates where critics bear a part, 
Not one but nods, and talks of Jonson's art, 
Of Shakespeare's nature," 

is the somewhat contemptuous comment he makes upon 
the now well-worn and conventional comparison. It is 
evident in truth, from the remarks scattered up and down 
the literature of the century and more following the Res- 
toration, that a distinction of some sort was felt to exist 
between nature and art in dramatic composition. In the 
abstract such a distinction might seem without fomida- 
tion. To some, indeed, it may even then have appeared 
absurd. Why should art be unnatural ? That art 
should not represent some things in nature is a posi- 
tion perfectly defensible. But why should art be 
opposed to nature ? Why should nature not be in 
accordance with the highest art? In the concrete, 
however, the question was invariably answered in 
one way, and it was answered in a way that for 
generations profoundly influenced the estimate taken 
of Shakespeare as a dramatist. 

3 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

Let us, however, try first to ascertain what it was 
that the original users of this distinction intended to 
express. What in particular did Jonson mean when 
he declared that Shakespeare lacked art? He surely 
could not have intended to say that the great dram- 
atist of all time was ignorant of the very things 
which were essential to success in his profession. In 
fact, in the glowing tribute which he subsequently paid 
to the memory of his friend he took care to insist upon 
his proficiency in the very particular which in the 
conversation with Drummond he is reported as hav- 
ing denied. He asserted that after Shakespeare the 
ancients — tart Aristophanes, neat Terence, and witty 
Plautus — please no longer, but lie antiquated and 
deserted, as if they were not of nature's family. 
Then he goes on to say, — 

" Yet must 1 not give nature all. Thy art, 
My gentle Shakespeare, must enjoy a part. 
For though the poet's matter nature be, 
His art doth give the fashion. . . . 

For a good poet 's made as well as born. 

And such wert thou. Look how the father's face 

Lives in his issue, even so the race 

Of Shakespeare's mind and manners brightly shines 

In his well-turned and true-filed lines, 

In each of which he seems to shake a lance, 

As brandished at the eyes of ignorance." 

Jonson was not a man to use words at random or to 
indulge in meaningless compliments. Could any inten- 
tion of the latter kind be conceived to have influenced 
his action, the responsibility of his position as the then 
acknowledged head of English men of letters would 

4 



THE DRAMATIC UNITIES 

have prevented their utterance. Clearly, therefore, the 
art spoken of in these lines is something quite distinct 
from the art which he told Drummond that Shakespeare 
lacked. What this latter was becomes apparent when 
we study with care one phase of the literary history of 
the Elizabethan period wliich has rarely received the 
full attention it deserves. 

There seems to be a common belief that criticism is 
an art of comparatively late growth. It is frequently 
implied, and occasionally asserted, that the farther we 
go back in literature, the less we have of discussion of 
its principles, and that if we go back far enough we 
shall have no discussion of them at all. Genius, it is 
said, contents itself then with producing ; it never stops 
to consider whether what it produces is in conformity 
with authorized canons of taste, even if it be aware that 
such canons exist. This happy condition of ignorance 
or indifference, assumed to be characteristic of early 
times, belongs to the realm of fiction rather than of fact. 
A critical age may not be creative ; but a creative age 
is always critical. It has to be so by the very law of its 
being. The new experiments it is constantly making, 
the new forms it is introducing, the new methods of 
expression to which it is resorting, — all these compel it 
to give a reason for their employment to itself, if not 
to others. Whatever it does will be made the sub- 
ject of comment, and consequently of attack and de- 
fence. Controversy, therefore, is always going on in a 
creative age. That the record of it does not come down 
to us at all, or at best comes down scantily, is due to 
other causes than lack of discussion at the time, or lack 

5 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

of interest in the subjects discussed. In early days 
there are no official organs existing for the purpose of 
recording the conflicting views and beliefs which divide 
men into hostile camps. Far the greatest part of the 
most thoughtful criticism then expressed dies away with 
the breath that utters it. From chance allusion only, 
or at best from occasional pamphlets, do we get any con- 
ception of the arguments that once tasked the intellects 
of the disputants and sometimes aroused their passions. 
Naturally, therefore, but little critical discussion 
has reached us from the Elizabethan age. Still, 
enough of it has survived to make it clear that it was 
an age of keen literary controversy. During the whole 
of that period a furious war raged between the partisans 
of what we should now call respectively the classical 
and the romantic school. Though no such names were 
then known, the realities flourished as potently as they 
have at any time since. In certain ways the battle was 
then fought and won on ground which has never since 
been contested. It is easy to understand how the con- 
flict should have arisen. The Latin and Greek litera- 
tures were the only ones with which the educated men 
of that day were familiar as a class. The steadily in- 
creasing attention paid to the two, which went on during 
the whole of the sixteenth century, developed at last a 
body of scholars who sought to make everything con- 
form to the rules and practices which classical antiquity 
had established, whether suited or not to modern condi- 
tions. It met with determined, though to a certain 
extent blind, resistance from that new life which 
was running almost riot in the veins of the men who 

6 



THE DRAMATIC UNITIES 

were creating the literature which in some respects we 
look upon as the proudest in the records of our speech. 
One phase of this long-continued struggle was the reso- 
lute attempt made to discard " rude and beggarly rym- 
ing," as it was called, and for it substitute in English 
poetry the metrical forms of the ancients. Hence in the 
literature of that period we come across dolorous Sap- 
phics, lame iambic trimeters, and lumbering hexameters ,• 
and in tliis slough of pedantry we find men of genius 
like Sidney and Spenser occasionally wallowing. Little 
success attended the attack on ryme, though it is pos- 
sible that it may have had indirectly some influence in 
strengthening the tendency to make blank verse the 
favorite measure for dramatic composition. 

A far more determined effort, however, was put forth 
to compel the drama of that period to conform to the 
rules which were supposed to govern the ancient stage. 
Conditions then existed which it might seem would 
contribute materially to the adoption of these. A move- 
ment of a similar kind had been begun some time before 
in Italy. There it had achieved a triumph. The example 
thus held out was full of encouragement to those who 
sought to rescue the English stage from what they chose 
to call barbarism. During the latter part of the six- 
teenth century and the beginning of the seventeenth, 
Italian literature exercised over English an influence 
greater than it has ever exerted since. Furthermore, 
the dramatic ideal set up by it came reinforced with the 
plea that it embodied the conceptions and followed the 
practice of the ancients. In this movement for the so- 
called reformation of the English stage we find the key to 

7 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

explain Jonson's words. In his statement that Shake- 
speare lacked art is concentrated the issue which has 
been in controversy between the adherents of the classi- 
cal and the romantic school since the birth of the 
modern drama. In this issue are involved several dis- 
tinct questions. The one which has played far the most 
important part in the conflict has naturally the first 
claim to consideration. This is the doctrine of the 
unities. 

It is outside the design of this work to enter into 
any account of this doctrine save so far as it concerns 
the English stage. For three centuries controversy in 
regard to it has raged with only occasional cessation. 
About it volumes have been written and further vol- 
umes are yet to be written. Even among its supporters 
there has been wide disagreement as to the exact scope 
of its rules. Here only so much needs to be said about 
it as bears directly upon the way in which, and the ex- 
tent to which, it came to affect the English theatre, and 
as a result of that, the influence it exerted upon the 
estimate taken of Shakespeare as a dramatic artist. 
Scholars will forgive what will strike them as the obtru- 
sion of the commonest of commonplaces when they find 
here a definition of the doctrine. In the varying inter- 
pretations which have at times been put upon the rules 
constituting it, the better course seems to be to furnish 
at the outset a statement of the precise meaning given 
to them in the following pages. They will be set forth 
as briefly as possible. The doctrine of the unities, it 
may then be said, consists in the three following 
points : — 

8 



THE DRAMATIC UNITIES 

First, the events occurring in the play acted upon the 
stage must be represented as having taken place within 
a period of twenty-four hours or less; that is to say, 
they must not extend over the space of one natural day. 
This is the unity of time. The reason given for the 
rule is that the duration of the action which goes on in 
the play should come as near as possible to the duration 
of the period in which it is represented. As the latter 
rarely covers more than three hours, the drama in which 
the events depicted as occurring come nearest to this 
space can be deemed the nearest imitation of nature. 
The time, however, has been occasionally lengthened 
beyond the limits here specified. Aristotle reported 
that such was occasionally the practice of the ancients. 
Corneille, who felt keenly how hard upon the modern 
author was the pressure of this rule, was disposed to 
prolong the time to tliirty hours. This extension was 
assented to reluctantly, whenever assented to at all, by 
the stricter advocates of the doctrine. It was a conces- 
sion to human infirmity which they might be forced to 
put up with ; but they made no pretence to look upon 
it with approval. Furthermore, between those who 
were willing to prolong the duration of the action 
somewhat beyond the twenty-four hours, and those who 
sought to restrict it as nearly as possible to the exact 
duration of the representation, sprang up a third party, 
which insisted that the time should be confined to the 
artificial instead of the natural day. The period be- 
tween sunrise and sunset was all that in their eyes could 
be properly allotted. Differences such as these, it will be 
seen, are mainly over details ; they do not concern the 

9 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

justice of the rule itself. They are controversies simply 
between what is allowable and what is praiseworthy. 

The second point is that the series of events that are 
represented in the play must be limited to one place. 
This does not ordinarily mean — at least in the English 
theatre — one room or one house. But just as the ideal 
attempted to be reached was to have the time of the 
action no longer than the time of representation, so also 
at certain periods, and especially in certain countries, a 
strenuous effort was put forth that nothing should take 
place in the performance of the play which would 
necessitate any change of scene whatever. The nearer 
an approach was made to this condition of things, the 
more it was felt that Art was justified of her children. 
Still, on the English stage this was an ideal rarely 
insisted upon, and less often attained. Much oftener 
was the requirement carried out that there should be no 
change of scene in any one act. But these are limita- 
tions which meet with favor or disfavor according to the 
opinions or prejudices of individuals. In general the 
rule means that the places in which the scenes are laid 
shall not be so remote from each other that the charac- 
ters cannot be supposed to pass from one to the other 
in the limited time allowed for the action of the play. 
Consequently various localities in the same town may 
be used for separate scenes in accordance with this rule. 
On the other hand, it is impossible that cities in differ- 
ent countries — such for instance as Rome in Italy and 
Alexandria in Egypt — can be looked upon as being in 
conformity with its requirements. This is the unity of 
place. 

10 



THE DRAMATIC UNITIES 

The third point is the unity of action. About the 
precise signification to be given to this rule, about the 
nature and extent of its requirement, there has been 
even wider divergence of opinion than about the scope 
of either of the others. Certainly there have been 
wider divergences in its application. It is sufficient to 
say that as used in this work it means that there should 
be but one plot. Furthermore, the development of it 
must be orderly. Any matter that would interfere with 
this ought not to be brought into the play. This limita- 
tion does not necessarily involve the abolition of subor- 
dinate plots, though the rejection of any such has 
sometimes been proclaimed as essential. It requires no 
more, however, than the observance of the rule that if 
they are introduced they are to be made subservient to 
the main plot, and to help carry on its action and bring 
about its denouement. Were this not the case, we 
should be having, in reality, two plays instead of one. 

These three requirements — of time, of place, of ac- 
tion — constitute, then, the doctrine of the unities. Upon 
them in the eyes of the classicists hang all the law and 
the prophets that have to do with the drama. Upon 
their exact observance depends the salvation of every 
man, not necessarily as a poet, but as a dramatic artist. 
The three imities, it has been said; but only two of 
them need much to be considered. Nobody seriously 
questions the propriety of the rule requiring unity of 
action. No adherent of the romantic drama ever denied 
its binding force, — at least as he understood it, and not 
as some one else defined it. Unlike the other two, it 
carries on its face the necessity of its being. As a con- 

11 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

sequence, in the controversies which have gone on in 
regard to the unities, this particular one, though first in 
importance, has been the one least considered. In fact, 
it has usually been dropped out of the discussion en- 
tirely. It is the unities of time and of place to which 
alone attention has been directed. It is with them only 
that critical literature deals to any extent. It is they 
that are almost invariably specified when any attempt 
is made to test any particular play as to the- degree of 
its conformity to the general doctrine. So regularly is 
this the case that when violation of the unities is 
spoken of in the following pages, those of time and 
place will ordinarily be the only ones intended, unless 
special attention is called to that of action. 

It is hardly necessary to say that Shakespeare rarely 
conforms to these two. In the so-called Histories they 
are absolutely disregarded. In them the period of time 
extends over many years, and so little attention is paid 
to the unity of place that successive scenes in the same 
act are sometimes supposed to occur in cities and 
countries scores and even hundreds of miles apart. 
These Histories indeed have generally been credited 
with being a law unto themselves. This was a feeling 
which showed itself at the very beginning. As early as 
1591 Florio represented the views of the severer school 
of critics in saying that the plays the English stage 
possessed were neither right comedies nor right trage- 
dies. He described them specifically as "representa- 
tions of histories without any decorum." ^ The line of 

1 Quoted by Malone in his ' Historical Account of the English 
Stage,' Shakespeare Works, variorum of 1821, vol. iii. p. 41. 

12 



THE DRAMATIC UNITIES 

defence which has often been taken for these produc- 
tions would strictly be inapplicable to the tragedies. 
Yet from some of these they differ in degree rather than 
in kind. The greatest of the latter, such as ' Hamlet,' 
' Lear,' ' Macbeth,' and ' Othello,' disregard utterly the 
unities of time and place. In the comedies, wliile there 
is generally much closer conformity to these canons, 
there is wide variation from any strict compliance with 
their requirements. The time of the action is usually 
two or more days in those where the rules appear to 
have been most rigidly observed. In some instances 
it extends to weeks and months. In the case of ' The 
Winter's Tale,' an interval of sixteen years elapses 
between the third and fourth acts. In so doing, 
Shakespeare was only acting as did most of his con- 
temporaries, though even among his fellow playwrights 
there were not wanting men to denounce the course 
usually followed as opposed to the example of the 
ancients, and therefore obviously reprehensible. 

It is equally evident that it is Shakespeare's practice 
which is the one followed upon the modern stage. 
Stress is no longer laid upon the unities of time and 
place. In regard to these the doctrine is now so thor- 
oughly discredited in theory and discarded in practice 
that there are playwrights of our day who, so far from 
accepting it, do not even know of its ever having had an 
existence. Accordingly it might seem an unnecessary 
slaying of the slain to consider it here at any length. 
Such an impression, however, would be a mistake. The 
weight which the belief in it has had upon the estimate 
formed of Shakespeare has been so unmeasured that a 

13 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

careful examination of its influence in English critical 
literature must always be a matter of first importance 
in the eyes of the special student of his career and repu- 
tation. Nor indeed can absolute confidence be felt that, 
at some period in the revolution of the ever-changing 
canons of taste and criticism, the doctrine of the unities 
may not, for a while at least, come again into fashion. 
It is improbable, to be sure ; it is by no means impos- 
sible. The field of battle is at present held by the 
romanticists ; but it cannot be forgotten that for nearly 
a century and a half even of the English drama it was 
occupied by the classicists. In France its sway over 
the belief and conduct of men was, from the middle of 
the seventeenth century, almost unmeasured. It was 
not, indeed, until 1827 that Victor Hugo, in the preface 
to his drama of Cromwell, sounded the trumpet blast 
that shook for the first time the literary traditions of 
his native land; for though at intervals inveighed 
against before, they had never lost perceptibly their 
hold. Yet even in spite of the triumph which he and 
his associates subsequently achieved, it is clear that the 
doctrine of the unities, though no longer held impera- 
tive, is still dear at heart to educated Frenchmen; 
that many of them look back regretfully to the days 
when submission to its behests was deemed absolutely 
essential to the highest art, and feel that the liberty 
now enjoyed is only another name for license. 

Of any such sentiment there is now little exhibition 
among the members of our own race. Some modern 
English writers, it is true, have occasionally constructed 
dramas in which the unities have been strictly preserved. 

14 



THE DRAMATIC UNITIES 

They may have produced them for the sake of experi- 
ment, or possibly in accordance with their own convic- 
tions. Browning is a case in point. Three of his 
plays — ' The Return of the Druses,' ' Colombe's Birth- 
day,' and 'Luria' — are all limited to one day and 
one place. Even ' Prince Victor and Prince Charles ' 
and ' A Soul's Tragedy ' — the last far the best of all — 
are divided into two parts ; and in both each part 
strictly observes the unities of time and place. But 
plays like these — never acted or unsuccessful if acted — 
are not representative of the dominant influences which 
now affect the English stage. In general, these re- 
quirements, once deemed essential, are at present sys- 
tematically ignored or contemptuously disallowed, even 
when they are not ignorantly disregarded. They are 
looked upon as trammelling the freedom of legitimate 
movement. If we are right now in this view, it is need- 
less to add that Shakespeare was right long before. 
Was he therefore really wanting in art, as Jonson 
asserted, and as men continued to repeat for nearly two 
hundred years after Jonson was dead? In order to 
answer this question satisfactorily, as well as to under- 
stand the nature of the estimate in which the great 
dramatist has been held, it will be necessary to give a 
brief outline of the history of the doctrine of the unities, 
so far as it relates to the English stage. Then we shall 
be in a position to comprehend whether Shakespeare's 
violation of these rules was due to carelessness or 
design ; whether his so-called lack of art sprang from 
ignorance or indifference on his part, or from an entirely 
different view of what constitutes art. 

15 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

Aristotle, it is to be said in the first place, is the one 
usually credited with formulating the doctrine of the 
unities, basing it upon the practice of the Greek trage- 
dians. His name is almost invariably mentioned in 
connection with it. Accordingly, it is apt to strike 
readers with surprise when they find that in the treatise 
on ' Poetics ' — the only work in which Aristotle touches 
upon the matter at all — it is the unity of action alone 
upon which he lays stress. About the unity of time 
there is but one sentence, and the observation in regard 
to it occurs almost incidentally. He is led to refer to 
it by his discussion of the distinction that exists be- 
tween dramatic and epic poetry. " Tragedy," he says, 
" is especially bounded by one period of the sun [that is, 
one entire natural day], or admits but a small variation 
from that period ; but the epopee is not defined within 
a certain time, and in this it differs from tragedy, 
though at first tragedy, no less than epic poetry, was 
not confined to any portion of time." 

This is the somewhat slender basis upon which the 
doctrine of the unities has been built up, so far as the 
one great authority credited with formulating it had any 
thing whatever to do with its creation. It is worthy of 
notice that Aristotle does not hold the action down 
rigidly to four and twenty hours. He allows a small 
variation from it, basing this privilege probably upon 
the occasional modification of the rule that was prac- 
tised upon the Greek stage. Nor does he even mention 
the unity of place; though it is just to admit that this 
is an almost inevitable sequence from the unity of time. 
But throughout there is nothing to indicate that he lays 

16 



THE DRAMATIC UNITIES 

much stress upon the latter as a principle of vital im- 
portance. His language is not at all that of a law- 
giver; it is merely that of an observer. He is simply 
registering the practice prevalent upon the Greek stage. 
He describes it in precisely the same way as he might 
have put on record a point of linguistic usage, about 
the abstract right or wrong of which he entertained no 
opinion, or at least expressed none. 

It seems as if it must have been students of Aris- 
totle, rather than Aristotle himself, who are to be cred- 
ited with the responsibility for the great weight which 
was placed upon the doctrine of the unities and for the 
belief in its obligatory observance. It was in Italy that 
it had its birth, though in France it found finally its 
cherished home. Its history outside of the English 
stage does not specially concern us here. It is suffi- 
cient to say that the credit or discredit of having been 
the first modern writer to construct a drama in which 
the unities of time and place are regularly observed, 
is generally given to Giovanni Giorgio Trissino, a 
scholar and poet of the court of Leo X. He was born 
at Vicenza in 1478 and died at Rome in 1550. The 
play referred to is the tragedy of Sofonisha. It is 
commonly said to have been written in 1515, and 
was printed about ten years after. The example of 
Trissino speedily found imitators in his own country. 
It was not long, however, before the influence of the 
principles he advocated and of the methods he adopted 
began to be felt in foreign lands. Their progress was 
assisted by the increasing veneration which was paid 
to the works of classical antiquity, especially of Greek 
2 17 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

literature. In time these rules came to play the same 
vigorous and damnatory part in the drama which the 
Athanasian creed has done in theology. It is hard 
indeed for us now to realize the importance that was 
once attached to the doctrine of the unities, how fer- 
vently or rather ferociously it was insisted upon, and 
how much opprobrium fell upon those who through 
carelessness about it, or ignorance of it, or disbelief 
in it, failed to conform to its requirements. 

In England the doctrine was early advocated. Long 
before the coming of Shakespeare it had been preached 
as the only true dramatic gospel. For its disregard of 
it the English stage was taunted with barbarism. In 
the dedication of his comedy of ' Promos and Cas- 
sandra,' printed in 1578, George Whetstone expressed 
himself with earnestness on this very topic. He 
attacked the drama of Italy, France, Spain, and Ger- 
many, as deviating from the practice of the ancients 
in various particulars. That of his own country 
he held up to special censure for its disregard of 
the unities of time and place. " The Englishman," he 
said, " in this quality is most vain, indiscreet, and out 
of order. He first grounds his work on impossibilities : 
then in three hours runs he through the world; mar- 
ries, gets children, makes children men, men to con- 
quer kingdoms, murder monsters, and bringeth gods 
from heaven and fetcheth devils from hell." 

Whetstone, however, was far from being a stickler 
for any rigid enforcement of the doctrine. He him- 
self observed it with a looseness which would have 
brought down upon his head the heaviest censure of 

18 



THE DRAMATIC UNITIES 

its later advocates, had his work ever been brought to 
their attention. In each of the two parts of 'Promos 
and Cassandra ' the time extends over several days ; and 
in the second part the place in one instance is trans- 
ferred from the city, in which the scene is laid, to a 
goodly distance in the country. One further comment 
is to be made upon the value of the information sup- 
posed to be contained in the passage which has just 
been quoted. When so much of our early drama has 
perished, it is hardly proper to deny the veracity of 
any statement made about it by a writer then living. 
Still we may be permitted to doubt whether many, if 
indeed any, plays were produced which correspond 
closely to the description here given of the way in 
which, and the extent to which, the unities were 
violated. It seems a piece of rhetorical exaggera- 
tion employed to emphasize an opinion rather than a 
calm statement of fact. Ben Jonson in a similar 
manner boasted that he had not made a child just 
born at the beginning of a play become a graybeard 
at its end.i No dramas corresponding either to his 
or to Whetstone's account of the passage of time have 
been handed down. Perhaps they never existed. At 
any rate, it will not do to take this sort of criticism 
too literally. During the eighteenth century Voltaire 
gave his readers the impression that about twenty-five 
years were wont to elapse between the beginning and 
the end of a play of Shakespeare's. He repeated the 
assertion so often that he probably came at last to 
believe it himself; and certainly his disciples among 

1 Prologue to ' Every Man in his Humor.' 
19 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

his countrymen had no suspicion that it was a mere 
figment of his own imagination. 

But a far greater name than Whetstone lent its 
authority to this kind of attack upon the Enghsh 
stage. Sir Philip Sidney's 'Apology for Poetry' was 
not published until 1595, nine years after his death; 
but the date of its composition is usually ascribed 
to 1581, It could not have been later than 1585, 
the year of his departure to the war in which he 
fell. In this work he furnished ample evidence of 
the strength of the hold which the doctrine of the 
unities had taken upon the men of the critical school 
to which he belonged. Language is hardly con- 
temptuous enough for Sidney to express his scorn 
for the neglect then prevailing upon the English 
stage of what he deemed the decencies of time and 
place. There is no hesitation in his utterance, no 
hint of uncertainty that he, and those who thought 
with him were not the people, and tliat wisdom 
should die with them. He first praised ' Gorboduc ' 
as a noble play, which as it was in part the work 
of a noble lord, he was in all courtesy bound to do. 
" Yet in truth," he went on to say, " it is very de- 
fections in the circumstances ; which grieveth me, be- 
cause it might not remain as an exact model of all 
tragedies. For it is faulty both in place and time, 
the two necessary companions of all corporal actions. 
For where the stage should always represent but one 
place, and the uttermost time presupposed in it should 
be, both by Aristotle's precept and common reason, 
but ^ one day ; there is both many days and many 

20 



THE DRAMATIC UNITIES 

places inartificially imagined. But if it be so in 
Gorboduc, how mucli more in all the rest, where you 
shall have Asia of the one side and Afric of the 
other, and so many other under-kingdoms that the 
player, when he cometh in, must ever begin with tell- 
ing where he is ; or else the tale will not be con- 
ceived. Now ye shall have three ladies walk to 
gather flowers, and then we must believe the stage 
to be a garden. By and by we hear news of ship- 
wreck in the same place, and then we are to blame 
if we accept it not for a rock. Upon the back of 
that comes out a hideous monster with fire and smoke, 
and then the miserable beholders are bound to take 
it for a cave. While in the mean time two armies 
fly in, represented with four swords and bucklers, and 
then what hard heart will not receive it for a pitched 
field?" 

This passage from Sidney is particularly interesting 
because it shows with what difficulties the early drama- 
tist had to contend in designating place in a period 
when movable scenery was unknown. Still Sidney is 
just as earnest on the subject of time, in which the 
presence or absence of movable scenery is rarely a mat- 
ter to be much considered, so far as concerns compre- 
hension. He made it a point of special ridicule that a 
play should open with two persons falling in love with 
each other, and end in the space of two hours with 
the marriage of their child, including of course numer- 
ous adventures that had taken place between birth and 
maturity : " which," was his comment, " how absuixl it 
is in sense, even sense may imagine, and art hath taught 

21 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

and all ancient examples justified." If we did not know 
that these words were written before Shakespeare made 
his appearance as a dramatist, we might almost fancy 
that the latter was the very writer Sidney had in view ; 
for what the one described as absurd bears a reasonably 
close resemblance to what is represented as taking place 
in ' The Winter's Tale ' of the other. 

Opinions such as these which have been quoted would 
hardly have been expressed, had not controversial dis- 
cussion preceded their utterance. It is manifest that 
at this early period the thoughts of men had been 
directed to the question of the unities. A party cer- 
tainly existed then in England which recognized and 
loudly proclaimed the obligation of their observance. 
Probably it was not large in numbers ; it was certainly 
feeble in influence. It did not affect appreciably the 
action of the great body of playwrights. The prominent 
earlier dramatists, Lyly, Greene, Peele, and Marlowe, — 
university graduates though they were, — paid no heed 
to this doctrine. The disregard of the unities which 
they displayed could hardly have been owing in all 
cases to ignorance. At any rate, in so doing they fol- 
lowed the general practice of their time. The situation 
was materially changed, however, when Ben Jonson 
threw the weight of his name in favor of the observance 
of these rules. Several things contributed to the in- 
fluence he exerted. He was a scholar as well as a 
dramatist, and great learning often overawes contem- 
poraries more than great talents, and sometimes even 
more than great genius. But talents and genius Jon- 
son had in addition to his learning. During the latter 

22 



THE DRAMATIC UNITIES 

half of his life, down even to his very death in 1637, he 
was the literary autocrat of his time. Both his influence 
and his unpopularity were augmented by the peculiari- 
ties of his character. In particular, besides his purely 
intellectual qualities, he had to a pronounced degree 
that pugnacity of disposition which in the case of many 
serves as an ample equivalent for actual ability, and as 
regards success in life frequently more than takes its 
place. 

I am not forgetting the fact that long before the 
period of which we are now speaking, plays had ap- 
peared in which the unities are fully observed. There 
are indeed certain subjects, or certain ways of treating 
a subject, which may be said to exact this course. The 
plot of ' Gammer Gurton's Needle,' produced full thirty 
^ears before Jonson had written a word on tliis particu- 
lar matter, almost compels the action to take place, as 
it does take place, in the space of a few hours ; just as 
the plot of Randolph's 'Muses' Looking-Glass,' pro- 
duced more than thirty years after Jonson began his 
propaganda, absolutely requires that the time of action 
shall be no longer than the time of representation. 
These are both plays which by the very nature of their 
being are obliged to observe the unities. Furthermore, 
before this same period there was a school of writers 
for the stage who in comedy professed to follow the 
practice of the ancients and in tragedy took as their 
model the dramas attributed to Seneca. In the latter 
pieces the chorus was retained after a fashion, mono- 
logue prevailed, and deference was paid to the unities, 
though they were not in all cases exactly observed. 

23 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

But the influence of the writers of these productions 
was neither extensive nor lasting. The plays they 
produced were academic exercises rather than dramas. 
They are the outcome of the scholarly, or it would be 
better to say, the pedantic spirit, as opposed to the 
popular, or again it would be better to say, the national 
spirit. However much tragedies of this sort came to 
flourish elsewhere, they had in England only the sickly 
growth of an exotic, transplanted to an unsuitable soil 
and an ungenial clime. 

Among the writers of this school were numbered 
some persons of scholarly attainments and one or two 
men of genius. Spenser pretty certainly belonged to it, 
though the comedies he produced have been lost, prob- 
ably with little loss to his reputation. But the only 
name of eminence connected with it, whose work sur- 
vives, is that of Daniel. It is significant of the immense 
sweep and force of the national movement which turned 
most literary activity in the direction of the drama, that 
it inspired or rather forced this poet to attempt a kind 
of writing for which he was totally unfitted. His two 
tragedies have the title and external form of dramas: 
they are really little more than discourses in the form 
of question and answer, with the questions very short 
and the answers very long. The first of these was 
' Cleopatra,' printed in 1594. It is patterned upon 
that depressing Senecan model, in which everybody 
talks a good deal and nobody does anything at all. 
It is mostly written in quatrains, and consists largely 
of long speeches. The only ostensible reason for any 
one to ask a question is to furnish the one questioned 

24 



THE DRAMATIC UNITIES 

witli an opportunity of setting off on the production of 
another long series of quatrains. The piece was never 
acted ; it hardly seems as if an English audience of any 
period could have endured its well-sustained tedious- 
ness. In it the unities are observed, though here, 
as frequently, exists that vagueness which arises from 
nothing ever being said about the time at all. Daniel's 
second tragedy, ' Philotas,' which appeared in 1605, 
is, as a drama, a distinct improvement. The dia- 
logue is wearisome, to be sure, but it does not always 
degenerate into monologue, and its quatrains are occa- 
sionally relieved by blank verse. But it fails unexpec- 
tedly in what the classicists would have deemed its most 
important feature. In the very middle of the third act 
three days avowedly elapse. The age had been too much 
for the poet. 

But none of this class of writers had any real influ- 
ence over the practice, and possibly not over the belief 
of their contemporaries. It was quite different with 
Jonson. He plays, in fact, so important a part in the 
early history of the doctrine of the unities in connec- 
tion with the English stage, that it becomes a matter 
of consequence to determine his precise attitude. It 
is not an altogether easy task. Especially is it dif- 
ficult to ascertain it at the outset of his career. One 
indeed gets the impression that his views were for a 
time unsettled ; at least that they had nothing of the 
positiveness which he came later to feel. Certainly his 
practice at first was far from indicating rigid obedience 
to these rules. One play of his — ' The Case is Altered ' 
— was not admitted into the collection of his works 

25 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

brought out under his own supervision in 1616. Yet 
it was written as early as 1599, in which year there is 
a distinct reference to it by Nash. In this comedy the 
time of the action extends over several weeks, if not 
months, and the unity of place is very far from being 
strictly observed. But besides this play, wliich has 
come down to us, there are others of his which have 
perished. By Meres in 1598 Jonson is mentioned 
among the writers who are best for tragedy. But 
no tragedy of his produced as early as that year sur- 
vives. Between December, 1597, and June, 1602, the 
manager Henslowe records the payment of various sums 
for six plays which Jonson was concerned in preparing 
for the Lord Admiral's company. They were written 
either singly or in conjunction with others.^ Not one of 
these has been preserved. Nor is it impossible that he 
was producing at the same period pieces for other 
companies. Whether he was unable or unwilling to 
include any of these in his own collection we have no 
means of ascertaining. Yet it is no improbable sup- 
position that he did not care to be held responsible 
for them, simply because they violated the doctrine of 
the unities of which he had come to be the declared 
champion. This is an impression which is made by 
his failure to include 'The Case is Altered.' It was 
a play of which he had no reason to be ashamed; yet 
not only did he omit it from the folio edition of his 
works, but he seems to have had no concern with its 
publication in quarto in 1609. 

1 See Henslowe's Diary, under dates of Dec. 3, 1597, Aug. 18, 1598, 
Oct. 23, 1598, Aug. 10, 1599, Sept. 2, 1599, and June 24, 1602. 

26 



THE DRAMATIC UNITIES 

At any rate, whatever his practice may have been 
originally, it is clear that, while still comparatively 
young, Jonson had begun to look upon the preserva- 
tion of the unities as essential to the proper con- 
struction of the drama. Not only did he govern his 
own conduct accordingly, but he set out by precept 
as well as example to reform the English stage. The 
first of the plays included by him in the folio of 1616 
was the one entitled ' Every Man in his Humor,' 
In that volume it is seen in its revised form; in its 
original form it had been published in quarto in 1601. 
In both versions the unities of time and place are 
observed. The play was first acted, as Jonson tells 
us himself, by the Lord Chamberlain's servants in 
1598, and there is a contemporary reference to a per- 
formance of it in a letter of September 20 of that 
same year.^ As found in the folio of 1616 it is pre- 
ceded by a prologue in which the author criticised 

1 Letter of Tobie Matthew to Dudley Carleton, dated September 
20, in Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series, 1598-1601, p. 97. 
This date disposes of the theory that Jonson had fallen out with the 
Lord Admiral's company, in consequence of his killing one of its 
actors in a duel, and had on that account transferred his services to 
the Lord Chamberlain's company. Jonson's own statement that the 
play was first acted in 1598 is confirmed by the letter-writer who 
speaks of it as " a new play." This date for its first production would 
never have been seriously controverted, had not Gifford found the 
selection of another year essential to the support of the view he was 
advocating. He therefore not only followed Malone's conjecture that 
the 'Timers' of Henslowe's Diary was perhaps Jonson's play, but 
assumed that there was no doubt of it. His fictitious date of 1596 
has ever since been treated with a respect to which it never had the 
slightest claim. Gifford was utterly unscrupulous in his assertions 
when he thought a view of his needed bolstering. He first stated 
something as probable, and then proceeded to argue from it as certain. 

27 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

the evil practices of composition then prevalent. The 
disregard of the unities of time and place naturally- 
received attention. The date of the composition of 
this prologue is unknown; but it is safe to say that 
it was never spoken when the piece was first acted. 
There was little limit, indeed, to Jonson's self-asser- 
tion and arrogance. Still he was not likely at the 
beginning of his career to put in the mouth of an 
actor of the company performing his play a criticism 
of the pieces they were in the habit of bringing out. 
But the prologue undoubtedly represented the feel- 
ings which he was then coming to entertain, and 
which later he took frequent pains to express. That 
portion of it which refers to the unity of time is 
comprised in the following words : — 

" Though need make many poets, and some such 
As art and nature have not bettered much : 
Yet ours for want hath not so loved the stage, 
As he dare serve the ill customs of the age. 
Or purchase your delight at such a rate, 
As for it he himself must justly hate : 
To make a child, now swaddled, to proceed 
Man, and then shoot up in one beard and weed 
Past threescore years ; or with three rusty swords, 
And help of some few foot-and-half-foot words. 
Fight over York and Lancaster's long jars. 
And in the tyring-house bring wounds to scars." 

The unity of place is referred to further on in a line 
in which he assures the audience that the chorus shall 
not waft them over the seas. 

The unities are not so rigorously observed in the 
second comedy which appeared in this collection. It 

28 



THE DRAMATIC UNITIES 

was entitled ' Every Man out of his Humor,' and 
was brought out the year following the production of 
the preceding play. In it, as printed, Jonson not only 
supplied the text of the comedy, but set out to save 
the reader the trouble of criticising it by furnishing a 
running comment for his benefit. This work is in- 
trusted to two characters called Mitis and Cordatus. 
The business of the former, as indeed his name sug- 
gests, is to raise feeble objections and to subside meekly 
the moment they are controverted. In all cases they 
are brushed aside instantly and almost contemptuously 
by the strong-minded Cordatus. He, as the author's 
friend, shows how silly and frivolous must be those 
who presume to find fault with anything which has 
been done. In the course of the dialogue between 
the two, which is entirely independent of the play 
itself, there occurs, among other things, a discussion 
about the unity of time and of place. This has an 
interest of its own, for the light it throws upon Jon- 
son's opinions at that particular date. It had then 
evidently dawned upon his mind that as there had 
been an advance in the development of the drama 
among the ancients themselves, there might be an 
advance also after the time of the ancients. In the 
dialogue upon this subject Mitis insists that the whole 
argument of the play must fall within the compass of 
a day's business. The necessity of this Cordatus de- 
nies. He points out how in various ways the privi- 
leges of comedy had been enlarged from time to time 
by the Greek and Roman playwrights. "I see not," 
he adds, "but we should enjoy the same license and 

29 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

free power to illustrate and heighten our inventions 
as they did; and not to be tied to their strict and 
regular forms which the niceness of a few, who are 
nothing but form, would thrust upon us." 

These words reveal to us the existence at that time 
of a class of critics who sought to restrain the liberty 
of the playwright by rules of severest strictness. With 
these sticklers for regularity, as it was afterwards styled, 
Jonson did not sympathize, at least then. He says of 
them somewhat contemptuously, that they are nothing 
but form ; we hardly need his testimony that they must 
have been few in number. It is indeed noteworthy that 
Jonson, while a believer in the doctrine of the unities, 
ranges himself at this period distinctly upon the side 
of those who give to its requirements a liberal inter- 
pretation. This he does in practice as well as precept. 
The time of this particular play is not clearly defined. 
It is apparently rather more than a day and a half ; 
though things are performed in it which in real life 
would have occupied several days. There is something 
of the same latitude shown in the matter of place. The 
scene announced as the Fortunate Island is actually 
London and its vicinity. In the course of the play 
it shifts from the country to the city, from the city 
to the court, and again from the court to the city. 
A passage in the dialogue between Mitis and Cordatus 
is here worth quoting in full, partly because it shows 
the extent of the privilege which Jonson was then 
willing to accord the playwright, but also because it 
is the first statement in our tongue of the assumed 
incapacity of the auditor to comprehend change of 

30 



THE DRAMATIC UNITIES 

scene. This was subsequently to be echoed and re- 
echoed for centuries by the advocates of the unity 
of place. The words are as follows : — 

" MiTis. What 's his scene ? 

CoRDATus. Marry, Insula Fortunata, sir. 

MiTis. Oh, the Fortunate Island; mass, he has bound 
himself to a strict law there. 

CoRDATUs. Why so ? 

MiTis. He cannot lightly alter the scene without cross- 
ing the seas. 

CoRDATus. He needs not, having a whole island to run 
through, I think. 

MiTis. No ! how comes it then, that in some one play we 
see so many seas, countries and kingdoms passed over with 
such admirable dexterity ? 

CoRDATus. 0, that but shows how well the authors can 
travel in their vocation, and outrun the apprehension of 
their auditory." 

The sea, it will be observed, was an insurmountable 
barrier; to cross it was license, not liberty. 

In another class of productions Jonson went much 
farther than in this comedy as regards the freedom 
given to the dramatist. When a few years later he 
came to write his tragedy of 'Sejanus,' he gave up 
all thought of adhering to the unity of time. He 
acknowledged it in his address to the reader. It was 
impossible on the modern stage to conform to the 
practice of the ancients and at the same time interest 
a modern audience. " If it be objected," he wrote, 
"that what I publish is no true poem in the strict 
laws of time, I confess it; as also in the want of a 
proper chorus, whose habit and moods are such and 

31 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

SO difficult, as not any whom I have seen, since the 
ancients, no, not they who have most presently affected 
laws, have yet come in the way of." Two things are 
brought out distinctly by this remark. One is the 
existence at that time of a body of men who, to use 
Jonson's phrase, affected laws. The other is that in 
his opinion there was no hope of success for him who 
strove to revive the practices and customs of the past. 
"Nor is it needful," he continued, "or almost pos- 
sible in these our times, and to such auditors as com- 
monly things are presented, to observe the old state 
and splendor of dramatic poems with preservation of 
any popular delight." This was Jonson's position when 
' Sejanus ' was published in 1605. Nor does it seem 
to have undergone any change when six years later he 
brought out the tragedy of ' Catiline.' In that not 
only is the unity of time disregarded but also the unity 
of place. The same state of things would also have been 
true of the unfinished ' Fall of Mortimer,' the last work 
that came from his pen, if we can trust the argument 
prefixed to the fragment that has been preserved. 

But, after all, these instances are exceptional. It was 
comedy to which Jonson devoted his main attention ; 
and comedy he held down unflinchingly to the require- 
ments of time and place. His course of conduct follows, 
too, the common experience of men. When he re- 
published in the folio of 1616 the play of ' Every 
Man out of his Humor,' he allowed the remarks about 
the unities to stand as they appeared in the quarto of 
1600. His opinions in theory were the same as before ; 
but his later practice, for a while at least, became much 

32 



THE DRAMATIC UNITIES' 

more rigid. There is always a tendency to make restric- 
tions voluntarily adopted into one's creed much more 
strict. An artificial regularity, the assumed beauty of 
which consists in its regularity, recommends itself more 
and more to the favor of those who admire it, the more 
closely its lines are drawn. Jonson, who in his comedy 
of ' Every Man out of his Humor ' was theoretically 
willing to give his characters a whole island to disport 
in, and found practically that he had sufficiently satis- 
fied the requirements of time and place in varying 
his scenes between the country, the court, and different 
parts of the city, soon began to manifest a disposition 
to subject himself to much more rigorous limitations 
of these laws. His three greatest works are usually 
reckoned ' Volpone, or the Fox,' * Epicene, or the Silent 
Woman,' and ' The Alchemist,' brought out respec- 
tively in 1605, 1609 and 1610. The first is well within 
the rules, but the latitude employed in it is altogether 
restricted in the case of the second and third. In ' The 
Silent Woman ' the time of the action is hardly more 
than that of the representation, and the change of place 
does not extend farther than the opposite side of the 
same street. Even this is surpassed by 'The Alche- 
mist.' There the scene is confined to one house and 
the space immediately in front of it, while the time 
is no longer than that required to perform the play. 
In his subsequent productions Jonson did not conform 
to requirements so severe ; but the ones just mentioned 
exliibit the ideal which he had in mind. 

Nor, as we have seen, was he satisfied with enforcing 
the doctrine of the unities by his practice. In season 
3 33 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

and out of season he proclaimed its binding force. His 
position as its great expounder and champion was recog- 
nized by his contemporaries. In the commendatory 
verses which Beaumont wrote upon the play of ' The 
Fox,' that dramatist bears testimony to his friend's 
knowledge of 

" The art, which thou alone 
Hast taught our tongue, the rules of time, of place." 

It was Jonson alone, it is to be observed, who had 
brought back to the English stage the simplicity and 
perfection of the ancients. To the same effect speaks 
Selden in some Latin verses addressed to the poet 
on his plays. Jonson himself proudly assumed the 
distinction. In his recommendatory verses to 'The 
Northern Lass ' of Brome, published in 1632, he 
plumed himself upon it. He praised his old servant, 
now turned playwright, for the skill he had displayed 
in writing for the stage, and the favor he had justly 
gained in so doing, 

" By observation of those comic laws 
Which I, your master, first did teach the age." 

Praise of the same sort followed Jonson when he was 
laid in his grave. It by no means limited itself indeed 
to his advocacy of the unities. The volume of com- 
mendatory verses to his memory, published the year 
after his death, contains several tributes to the various 
efforts he had put forth to purify the theatre from the 
ill practices of all kinds which he had found prevalent 
when he came to write for it. Cleveland spoke of him 
as the one " who first reformed our stage with justest 

34 



THE DRAMATIC UNITIES 

laws." To the same effect, but with more detail, wrote 
Jasper Mayne. He commended Jonson's scene as being 
free from monsters. No deity was called in to loose 
the knot of improbabilities in which the action of the 
play was involved. His regard for the unity of place 
and his avoidance of the tumultuous scenes of the ro- 
mantic drama were further indicated in the following 
lines : — 

" The stage was still a stage, two entrances 
Were not two parts of the world disjoined by seas. 
Thine were land-tragedies ; no prince was found 
To swim a whole scene out, then o' the stage drowned ; 
Pitched fields, as Red Bull wars, still telt thy doom ; 
Thou laidst no sieges to the music room." 

Owen Feltham poured himself forth in a similar strain. 
To the observation that with the career and death of 
Shakespeare, of Beaumont, and finally of Jonson, the 
stage had witnessed both her glory and decay, he added 
this declaration of the influence which the last-mentioned 
dramatist had exerted : — 

"Whose judgment was 't refined it? or who 
Gave laws by which hereafter all must go, 
But solid Jonson?" 

Too much stress need not be put upon the exact accu- 
racy of complimentary phrases paid to a dead man whom, 
now that he was out of the reach of either praise or cen- 
sure, all could unite in honoring. Still, there is no mis- 
taking the meaning of the opinion generally entertained 
about him both while he was living and after his death. 
Respect could never have failed to be paid to the lofty 
conception he had of the poet's mission, and to his un- 

35 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

flinching determination not to allow his necessities to 
drag him into doing anything unbecoming the art he 
professed. Even those who did not accept his judg- 
ment and were offended at his arrogance must have 
admired the independence of his spirit. He represented 
worthily his side of the controversy which went on 
then between classicism and romanticism. Men at that 
time, as later, belonged consciously or unconsciously to 
the one party or the other. They did not dignify their 
differences by the assumption of titles ; none the less did 
the realities exist. It is clear in the history of the early 
drama that Jonson was to his contemporaries as dis- 
tinctly the protagonist of what we now call the classical 
school as Shakespeare has been to all succeeding times 
the protagonist of the romantic. 



36 



CHAPTER II 

THE DRAMATIC UNITIES 
II 

JONSON in the course of time became the literary- 
autocrat of his age. He was disliked by many; but 
there was no one to dispute his supremacy. As he 
was conspicuously identified with the cause of the 
unities, it was inevitable that his advocacy of it and 
his example should affect in some measure the belief 
and practice of his contemporaries. The extent of the 
influence he exerted in enforcing the obligation of 
observing the doctrine he championed has never been 
accurately determined. To ascertain it precisely would 
require an exhaustive examination, with reference to 
this particular point, of the extant dramatic production 
of the seventeenth century down to the closing of the 
theatres in 1642. A somewhat superficial examination 
leads to the impression that the obedience paid to the 
rules he proclaimed was exceptional rather than general. 
A theoretical assent was perhaps given to their require- 
ments, and respect professed for them as exhibiting the 
only correct method of stage composition. But in 
actual practice Jonson's example found few imitators 
outside of that circle of younger writers who in his 
latter days recognized him as their master. He him- 
self was apparently not able to influence the action of 

37 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

those in conjunction with whom he wrote. The comedy 
of ' Eastward Ho ' carried on its title-page, when 
printed in 1605, the names of Chapman, Jonson, and 
Marston as its authors. Jonson's part in the produc- 
tion of this piece has been frequently declared to be 
slight. It is an assertion that can be safely made, as 
no evidence exists either to confirm or to confute it. 
But whether he shared much or little in its composition, 
he shared in the punishment inflicted upon its com- 
posers. Yet in this very play for which he suffered 
imprisonment, it is noticeable that neither the unity 
of time nor of place is observed. 

Still there is no doubt that his teachings bore fruit, 
and to some extent speedily. Even early in the 
seventeenth century the preservation of the unities was 
an ideal which certain of the writers for the stage had 
come to cherish, and there is little question that in 
most cases this came to pass through his influence. Its 
actual achievement was regarded as something redound- 
ing to the credit of the author. At least that was the 
assumption on his own part. There was, for instance, 
published in 1611 a lively, bustling, coarse comedy 
entitled ' Ram Alley or Merry Tricks.' It was the 
work of a certain Lodowick Barry, who only exists 
for us as its author. In this play the unities of time 
and place are strictly regarded. The writer prided 
himself upon the fact. In his prologue he spoke of 
himself as 

" Observing all those ancient streams, 
Which from the Horse-foot fount do flow, 
As time, place, person." 
38 



THE DRAMATIC UNITIES 

In truth, not merely was the practice affected of those 
who looked up to Jonson as their leader, but occasion- 
ally that of his opponents. This can be seen in the 
literary duel that went on between him and Dekker. 
In 1602 the latter produced his ' Histriomastix or 
Player's Scourge ' as a reply to ' The Poetaster ' of 
the former. In it, very likely for the first time in his 
life, and probably for the last time, Dekker confined 
the action of his play to one place and one day. 

It is manifest, however, that there was no general 
assent to the doctrine. To it, from the outset, there 
must have been not only vigorous but successful op- 
position. Few of the great names connected with our 
early drama conformed to its requirements save in 
occasional instances. Against it could always be cited 
at that time, as in later days, the practice of Shake- 
speare, even then reckoned by the multitude as the 
greatest name of all. Furthermore, those who pre- 
tended to observe the doctrine observed it very loosely. 
They cast a certain discredit upon it by the latitude 
they gave to place. They cast upon it still further 
discredit by enveloping the time of the action in a 
vagueness which renders its precise length very difficult 
to ascertain even now on careful reading, and must 
have made it impossible to detect in representation. 
That this was sometimes done intentionally there can 
hardly be any question. The writer sought to shelter 
himself from the tyranny of laws which he felt he 
must obey by shrouding in misty language the period 
required for the development of the plot. More than 
this, some of those who ranged themselves distinctly 

39 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

under Jonson's banner failed to live up to the austerity 
of his precepts. Brome, his old servant, tried, for in- 
stance, to conform to his doctrine in the comedy of 
' The Northern Lass,' and succeeded well enough, as 
we have seen,i to receive commendation for it from 
his master. Yet in a play which speedily followed — 
' The Sparagus Garden, ' brought out in 1635 — the 
time of the action, though much wrapt in mystery, 
cannot be less than seven days. 

It was not, indeed, until after the Restoration that 
conformity to the doctrine of the unities came to be 
accepted by the leading playwrights of the age as the 
only correct practice. French tastes and French critical 
canons had come in with Charles II. These tastes and 
these canons dominated English opinion in many ways 
for more than a century; but nowhere so much as in 
the theories held about the stage. In France the doc- 
trine of the unities had established itself triumphantly. 
All opposition to it had been crushed. It was now 
about to extend its dominion over England. Its prog- 
ress there was assisted by the authority of the purely 
classical school. From the period of the Renaissance 
there has always been a body of critics who have been 
disposed to look upon everything produced since the 
fall of the Roman empire as partaking somewhat of the 
nature of the frivolous. In their eyes any practice of 
the moderns disagreeing with that of the ancients is 
objectionable; or if not strictly objectionable, it is of 
an inferior character. These men are to be found 
now; but they were far more numerous one or two 
1 See p. 34. 
40 



THE DRAMATIC UNITIES 

hundred years ago. To them everything done by the 
Greeks or written in the Greek tongue was redolent 
of the odor of peculiar sanctity. All the influence 
they exerted was naturally given to the support of the 
doctrine of the unities; and among them are to be 
found one or two of the greatest names in our litera- 
ture. In 1671 Milton published his tragedy of ' Sam- 
son Agonistes.' In it he added the weight of his 
authority to the critical views that were then begin- 
ning to be generally accepted. In the preface to his 
play he took pains to censure the modern stage for 
several things which are now regarded as redounding 
to its credit. Naturally the matter under considera- 
tion did not escape his notice. The unities he sup- 
ported as earnestly as if he were a member of the 
French Academy. " The circumscription of time, " are 
his closing words, " wherein the whole drama begins and 
ends, is, according to ancient rule and best example, 
within the space of twenty-four hours." 

Not but that after the Restoration there were plenty 
of dissenters in practice, and a few in theory. To the 
former state of things both previous example and the 
natural indolence of man would contribute. There 
were authors who had little reputation to gain or lose. 
These did not care to burden themselves with require- 
ments to which it was hard to conform, and for which 
the audiences they appealed to cared little or nothing. 
They knew, too, that they had on their side the great 
writers of the former age with the exception of Jonson ; 
and Jonson, who observed the rules, was then no more 
popular with theatre-goers than Shakespeare, who dis- 

41 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

regarded them, and much less so than Fletcher, who 
observed them but rarely. But no indifference of this 
sort prevailed among the dramatists who were daily 
rising into prominence and favor. They took pains to 
conform to what was called regularity. Dryden bears 
witness to the feelings that existed on the part both 
of poet and of public in his comedy of ' Secret Love 
or the Maiden Queen.' This was brought out in 
March, 1667. In the prologue he boasted of it as 
having been written in exact conformity to the rules. 
In the preface to the published play he added similar 
testimony. "I would tell the reader," he said of it, 
" that it is regular according to the strictest of dramatic 
laws ; but that is a commendation which many of our 
poets now despise, and a beauty which our common 
audiences do not easily discern." 

This feeling about the necessity of observing the 
unities of time and place grew steadily from the period 
of the Restoration. During the eighteenth century 
it increased rather than diminished. By the middle 
of it Voltaire had become acknowledged as the supreme 
literary legislator of Europe. His attitude towards 
Shakespeare, and the English attitude towards him in 
consequence, will demand a treatise of its own. Here 
it is sufficient to observe that upon the propriety of 
conforming to the unities his opinions were of the 
most decided character. He had argued vigorously for 
their observance in the preface to the edition of his 
(Edipe^ which was published in 1730. This preface 
was largely an answer to the attack of La Motte 
upon the unnaturalness of the French stage. That 

42 



THE DRAMATIC UNITIES 

writer had shocked to the very soul the feel- 
ings of his countrymen by asserting that tragedy 
could properly be written in prose. He had gone 
farther. He had denied the binding force of the 
unities, and pleaded for their abolition. Such he- 
retical views Voltaire felt called upon to combat, and, 
if possible, to crush. The French, he claimed, were 
the first to revive the wise rules of the ancient theatre. 
Other nations had for a long time refused to submit 
to the restrictions these imposed ; but as the laws were 
just, and reason must finally triumph, they too had 
yielded. "Even in England," he continued, "at this 
day authors give a notice at the beginning of their 
pieces, that the time employed in the action is equal 
to that in the representation, and thus go farther than 
ourselves who taught them." It was a consequence 
that those ages, in which the practice was unknown to 
the greatest geniuses like Shakespeare and Lope de 
Vega, were beginning to be looked upon as barbarous. 
These opinions Voltaire held with increasing fervor till 
the day of his death. He never wavered in the view 
expressed in his letter to Lord Bolingbroke that the 
fundamental laws of the theatre were the three unities. 
He was of course mistaken — on matters of fact he was 
very apt to be mistaken — in his assertion that it was in 
France that the doctrine of the unities had originated, 
or from it had been introduced into England. But 
he was to this extent right that it wa;s the French influ- 
ence which came in with the Restoration that converted 
into positive obligation what had hitherto been deemed 
by most writers merely a matter of choice. 

43 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

But the English never took kindly to the doctrine of 
the unities. The audience cared nothing for it: the 
writers for the stage, while generally accepting it, while 
professing to regard it as the only true gospel, invari- 
ably fretted under it. It was with them a belief of the 
intellect rather than of the heart. In the days of its 
greatest vogue this doctrine never gained in England 
any such foothold as it had in France. Many will see 
in this little more than a characteristic difference be- 
tween the two nations, — one submitting impatiently to 
any restraint which hinders the freedom of its move- 
ments, grumbling at laws which it recognizes the pro- 
priety if not necessity of obeying; the other not only 
liking to be governed, but liking to feel itself gov- 
erned. There may be a certain amount of truth in 
such a view. But it will hardly do to accept it as a 
full explanation. Experience shows that in literary 
fashions there are few practices or beliefs, no matter 
how unimportant or unreasonable in themselves, which 
any people under proper conditions cannot be trained to 
regard as of greatest moment. No better illustration 
of the fact can be found in the dramatic history of our 
own tongue than the attitude once taken by the public 
towards a mere accessory of stage representation, in 
itself absolutely unessential. 

In general, at earlier periods, but during the whole 
of the eighteenth century in particular, every dramatic 
piece produced in England had to be preceded at its first 
appearance by a prologue and followed by an epilogue. 
It was not a matter of choice ; it was one of necessity. 
The greatest play ever written, composed by the most 

44 



THE DRAMATIC UNITIES 

popular dramatist that ever wrote, would hardly have 
been allowed, unless under exceptional conditions, to be 
brought on the stage without these accompaniments. 
Mrs. Centlivre, in her preface to the comedy of ' The 
Perplexed Lovers,' tells us of the resentment expressed 
by the audience because, owing to circumstances, there 
was no epilogue the first night. The requirement was 
often felt to be a hardship; and the freedom of the 
French stage from the obligation was many times re- 
marked upon to its credit. But no disposition mani- 
fested itself to release the dramatic author from this 
exaction. These pieces were eagerly waited for by the 
spectators. Later they were regularly printed in the 
periodicals of the time. They were sometimes dis- 
cussed as seriously by the critics as the play itself. 
Certain writers gained a special reputation by their 
success in composing them. A good prologue con- 
tributed directly to the success of the performance 
which followed; and while a good epilogue could not 
bring about a result which had already taken place, it 
affected to some extent the future of the piece. It 
served to send the audience home in good humor. We 
are told that Dr. Francklin's tragedy of ' The Earl of 
Warwick,' produced at Drury Lane in 1766, would 
have been condemned if it had not been relieved by 
a most admirable epilogue of Garrick ; ^ and the asser- 
tion, whether true or not, bears witness to the popular 
belief. These appendages, therefore, in themselves of 
no real consequence, and having no bearing upon the 

1 Life of Francklin, in London Magazine, 1784, vol. lii. (enlarged 
series), p. 179. 

45 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

merits of the piece, were elevated in public opinion to 
matters of essential importance. The custom died out 
in time because there was no real justification for its 
living. Still it continued to be kept up long after the 
taste which demanded it had disappeared. When in 
the early part of the nineteenth century the manager 
of one of the London theatres ventured to put a play 
upon the stage without prologue or epilogue, he did it 
with fear and trembling, and was agreeably surprised 
to find that their omission had excited no attention 
whatever. 

Just so it was in France with the doctrine of the 
unities, only much more so. The public was trained to 
regard the observance of these rules as a matter of 
vital importance. No variation from them, no modifica- 
tion of their restrictions was allowed. To demand con- 
formity to their requirements became so much a French 
critical practice that it may fairly be said to have in 
time become part of the French nature. But it was 
never thus in England even in the days when the unities 
of time and place were most strictly insisted upon in 
theory and observed in practice. Though the leading 
writers generally submitted to the rules, they did not 
do so rejoicingly. They felt the hardship much more 
than they appreciated the assumed aesthetic result. 
Shadwell, for instance, tells us in the preface to his 
comedy of ' The Sullen Lovers, ' brought out in 1668, 
that as near as he could he had observed the unities. 
The place was a narrow compass, and the time did not 
exceed six hours. But "you cannot expect," he con- 
cludes with saying, " a very correct play, under a year's 

46 



THE DRAMATIC UNITIES 

pains at the least, from the wittiest man of the nation." 
If such words could come from a professed follower and 
enthusiastic admirer of Ben Jonson, we can easily get 
an insight into the feelings of those who gave the pref- 
erence to Jonson's greater contemporary. As time 
went on, Shakespeare came more and more to the front. 
His plays, and an increasing number of them, were 
more and more acted. They not merely kept before 
the minds of men other ideals than those then in 
fashion, but the name of their author served as a stand- 
ard of revolt about which the disaffected gathered. 

For there was disaffection from the very outset. 
Dissent in practice there always was; but dissent in 
theory also continued to break out at intervals until it 
became strong enough in time to supplant the established 
faith. It was manifested early. No one who has fa- 
miliarized himself with the critical controversies of the 
Restoration period is ignorant of the fact that Dryden 
and Dryden's brother-in-law, Sir Robert Howard, dif- 
fered as widely about the unities as they did about 
the use of ryme. The same arguments were then em- 
ployed on both sides, which, as we shall discover, had 
been implied, if not directly stated before, and were 
to do frequent duty later. Howard insisted that one 
stage cannot represent two rooms or two houses any 
more truly than it can two countries. Twenty-four 
hours cannot be crowded into two hours and a half any 
more than can twenty-four months. All these things 
are impossibilities ; and impossibilities are equal and ad- 
mit of no degrees.^ The reply of Dryden was essen- 

1 Preface to 'The Duke of Lerma ' (1668). 
47 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

tially to the effect that though impossibilities are in 
reality the same, they are not the same to our concep- 
tions. It is more in consonance with our feelings to 
accept a business of twenty-four hours as having hap- 
pened in three, than a business of twenty-four years. 
Furthermore, one real place can easily represent two 
imaginary places, provided it be done in succession. ^ 
Dryden did not seem to be aware that in this last 
modification of the rules he was practically giving up 
his own cause. Still, most of the rising generation of 
dramatists ranged themselves on his side. Howard's 
was little more than a solitary voice ; for while others 
doubtless thought as he did, few had the courage to 
say so. The weight of critical opinion was and long 
continued to be the other way. Moreover, it was posi- 
tive in the expression of its views up to the point of 
arrogance and insolence. However much individuals 
might therefore dislike the doctrine of the unities or 
be disposed to deny its truth, they felt the pressure 
put upon them to submit to its requirements. 

For all that, it was no few scattered persons whom 
Howard represented. They constituted a party, and 
it was a party which never ceased to exist. It may 
be said to have had the secret sympathy of most of 
the spectators; at least it never incurred their hostil- 
ity. It was not, indeed, dread of the hearers that 
made the English playwright observe the unities; it 
was dread of the critics. This was a fundamental dis- 
tinction between the English and the French theatre. 
It arose largely from the fact that in France the 

1 Defence of an Essay of Dramatic Poesy (1668). 
48 



THE DRAMATIC UNITIES 

audience was made up of a select class, while in 
England it was made up of all classes. But further- 
more, in the critical world of the latter country 
there was always to be found a number who in theory 
at least did not bow their knees to this particular Baal. 
Some of them, too, were men who occupied a high posi- 
tion in literature. Early in the eighteenth century the 
dramatist Farquhar attacked the doctrine in his ' Dis- 
cussion upon Comedy in reference to the English Stage.' 
Neither the men who originated it nor the men who 
defended it were spared. He spoke with the utmost 
contempt of the plays produced by scholars in exactest 
conformity with the rules, but lacking every quality 
that could interest or excite. Aristotle, moreover, 
fared hardly at the hands of Farquhar, not so much 
for what he had said himself as for what others had 
said that he said. The force of this special attack was 
largely impaired by his contention that inasmuch as the 
great philosopher was no poet, he was incapable of 
judging what constitutes poetry. This is of course a 
principle which, if fully carried out, would leave only 
to a cook the power of determining whether a dinner 
is good or bad. But his vigorous argument against 
what he spoke of as the folly of the unities was not 
weakened by the adoption of this ancient fallacy. 

In regard to time, Farquhar maintained that if 
writers extended, as they ordinarily did, to twelve or 
twenty-four hours the action of a play which took but 
three hours in representation, there was no reason why 
they should not also extend it to days. Adherence to 
precise fact had been violated in the one case and 
4 49 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

had been authoritatively sanctioned. There was no 
reason in the nature of things why the same privilege 
should not be accorded to a further as yet unsanc- 
tioned violation of exactly the same character. A 
similar argument prevailed as to place. How can you 
carry me with you ? he represents the objector as ask- 
ing. Very easily, replies Farquhar, if you are willing 
to go. You enter the theatre, and as soon as the cur- 
tain rises you are told that you are in Grand Cairo, 
though the moment before you were in England. This 
is a most outrageous improbability, but you consent to 
it without difficulty. Then the curtain rises on a 
second scene, and you find yourself in Astrachan. 
Intolerable, you say. No more so than in the other 
case, is the reply. If you let your mind travel, it Mnll 
perform the journey with perfect ease without the 
slightest disturbance to your person. There was of 
course nothing novel in this argument. It did no more 
than repeat what we shall see had been said by Shake- 
speare himself. 

This was the protest against the observance of the 
unities put forth by a leading dramatist at the very be- 
ginning of the eighteenth century. In the middle of 
it views of the same character were expressed by two 
men of eminence, one of whom was a man of genius. 
These were Foote and Fielding. In a guarded way 
the former expressed contempt for the doctrine. "In 
general," said he, "these bonds do not hit the taste and 
genius of the free-born luxuriant inhabitants of this isle. 
They will no more bear a yoke in poetry than in reli- 
gion." He added that Shakespeare, by heeding only 

50 



THE DRAMATIC UNITIES 

the unity of character, disregarded by the writers of 
other countries, " had produced more matter for delight 
and instruction than could be culled from all the starved, 
strait-laced brats that every other bard has produced." ^ 
It was almost to be expected that the doctrine in ques- 
tion should be spurned by the robust intellect of Field- 
ing. Such was certainly the fact. In the critical chapter 
prefixed to the fifth book of ' Tom Jones, ' he took occa- 
sion to sneer at the authority which had been adduced 
to bolster it up. " Whoever demanded," he wrote, " the 
reasons of that nice unity of time and place which is 
now established to be so essential to dramatic poetry? 
What critic hath ever been asked why a play may not 
contain two days as well as one ? Or why the audience 
(provided they travel, like electors, without any expense) 
may not be wafted fifty miles as well as five ? " 

Incidental utterances like these could not be expected 
to affect profoundly public opinion. An assertion of 
this sort, however, would not be true of two fuller dis- 
cussions of the subject which were made a little later. 
In this controversy more weight should be given than 
has yet been the case to the influence of Henry Home, 
who in 1752 had been appointed one of the Scotch 
judges of session, and had taken his seat as Lord 
Karnes. Ten years later — in 1762 — he brought out 
a work in three volumes entitled ' Elements of Criti- 
cism.' It is not a treatise which, strictly speaking, can 
be called exciting. Indeed Goldsmith is credited with 
the assertion that it is one easier to have written than 

1 Foote's 'Roman and English Comedy Considered and Compared' 
(1747), pp. 21-22. 

51 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

to read. The ideas of Karnes were often acute and sug- 
gestive; but in his way of expressing them he was 
almost invariably prosaic and dry. This characteristic, 
however, had its compensations. He got that reputa- 
tion for being profound which comes to the author 
who makes the reader share in his own labor. Still, 
for a production of its kind the work was fairly success- 
ful, if, indeed, it is not entitled to be called popular. 
Before the death of its author in 1782 it had gone 
through five editions. It had early been translated into 
German. Even at this day it may be said still to 
survive after a fashion. There is no question that dur- 
ing the latter part of the eighteenth century, owing to 
the position of its author and the philosophical nature 
of the work itself, it exerted a good deal of influence, 
especially with the critical fraternity. This makes the 
opinion expressed by Karnes about the unities a matter 
of some importance in the history of the controversy. 

In regard to the doctrine, he took what was in some 
respects advanced ground for his day. His line of 
argument may be briefly stated. The unity of action 
is the only thing essential to dramatic composition. 
The unities of time and place stand upon an altogether 
different footing. Observance of these two latter had 
indeed been inculcated as absolutely necessary both by 
French and English critics. Such they were even ac- 
knowledged to be by the very dramatists who in their 
practice frequently disregarded them. These, however, 
made no pretence to justify their conduct. This task 
Kames proceeded to do for them. In requiring the 
modern theatre to conform to the ancient in the matter 

52 



THE DRAMATIC UNITIES 

of the unities, he insisted that modern criticism was 
guilty of a gross blunder. The Greek drama was a 
continuous representation without interruption. Con- 
tinuous representation gave no opportunity to vary the 
place or prolong the time. These unities were there- 
fore with them a matter of necessity and not of choice. 
In the modern drama, on the other hand, obedience 
to this doctrine was a matter purely of choice and not 
at all of necessity. In it the stage is emptied at 
regular intervals, and the spectacle suspended. When 
the action is renewed, the mind easily accommodates 
itself to the variations of time and place that may have 
been introduced. 

In some particulars Kames had anticipated the line of 
reasoning by which Lessing was a little later to demolish 
the foundations upon which the doctrine of the unities was 
built. In other ways he had not worked himself clear 
from the beliefs and prejudices of his time. He clung 
to the division of the play into five acts as something 
peculiarly sacred. Consequently, while time and place 
might be varied from one act to another, it could not be 
within the acts themselves. He further failed to com- 
prehend the very strongest argument which Lessing 
subsequently brought against the obligation of the uni- 
ties, and even went on to argue against its force. There 
is, however, a good deal of justice in his contention that 
unbounded license on the subject of time is faulty, not 
necessarily in Itself, but because it tends to destroy the 
first and only important unity, that of action. The judi- 
cial attitude of mind which Kames preserved throughout 
his whole discussion of the subject undoubtedly contrib- 

63 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

uted much to the favorable reception of his conclusions. 
His very moderation of utterance on certain points would 
recommend his views on others to many who would 
have been unwilling to cast off at one stroke the bur- 
den of traditional beliefs which had been brought down 
from the past. 

But the most effective opponent of the unities during 
the eighteenth century was Dr. Johnson. It was in one 
of his essays in ' The Rambler ' that he first considered 
them.^ In that it was merely a part of a general attack 
upon dramatic beliefs current in his day. He specifi- 
cally mentioned certain rules, then or formerly accepted 
as governing stage jDroductions, as being nothing more 
than the " accidental prescriptions of authority," which, 
he added, " when time has procured them veneration, are 
often confounded with the laws of nature." As their 
origin was frequently undiscoverable, they were sup- 
posed in consequence to be coeval with reason. One of 
these laws peremptorily decreed by ancient writers — by 
Horace in particular — was that but three actors should 
appear at once upon the stage. This rule, for which 
there was no real reason, it had been found impossible 
to observe in the crowded modern scene. It had there- 
fore been violated without scruple, and, as experience 
had shown, without the least inconvenience. In this 
instance Johnson found his own opinion supported by 
the opinion of his age. But hostility was manifested by 
him to the rule, then regularly observed, that the number 
of acts should be five. For this practice he could find 
no justification. The intervals in any given play, he 
i No. 156, Sept. 14, 1751. 
54 



THE DRAMATIC UNITIES 

said, might be more or fewer than that number. Usu- 
ally indeed they were dift'erent from it. As a conse- 
quence the rule was constantly broken on the English 
stage in effect, while a most absurd endeavor was made 
to observe it in appearance. Modern practice sustains 
Johnson's contention. Regard is no longer paid to 
this rule which Horace had authoritatively declared 
should never be trangressed in stage representation. 
To the unprejudiced observer, indeed, there seems no 
more reason that a drama should be in five acts than 
a novel in three volumes. 

With independent views upon these points it is not 
surprising to find Johnson questioning the authority 
of the doctrine of the unities. At this time, how- 
ever, he did little more than record his dissent. But 
when fourteen years later he brought out his edition 
of Shakespeare he was much more outspoken. In the 
preface to that work he not only examined the doctrine 
at considerable length, but he made no pretence to veil 
the contempt for it he felt. He ridiculed the idea that 
any representation is ever mistaken for reality, and 
summed up the situation by declaring that the specta- 
tors are always in their senses, and know from the first 
act to the last that the stage is only a stage, and that 
the players are only players. They do not believe for a 
moment that the place, where the scene is supposed to be, 
is Athens or Vienna or Venice or Verona, and still less 
that the persons who are speaking the words they hear 
are actually Theseus or Mariana or Shylock or Romeo. 
Delusion, if delusion be admitted, has no limitation. If 
a man, when the play opens at Alexandria, really imag- 

55 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

ines himself to be at Alexandria, he can readily imagine 
more. If at one time he can take the stage to be the 
palace of the Ptolemies, he can a little later as easily 
take it for the promontory of Actium. This, it will 
be seen, is essentially Farquhar's position. Yet while 
Johnson laid down principles like these, which seem to 
us almost commonplaces, he did it with a certain hesi- 
tation. He acknowledged that the weight of authority 
was against him and that he was almost frightened at his 
own temerity. These words are significant. Strongly 
intrenched indeed must have been the belief which 
could make Johnson falter about attacking it, whether 
it was held by few or by many, by great men or by 
little men. 

Yet he must have met with views not essentially 
different in works with which he was familiar. Dis- 
sent pervades a good deal of the critical literature of 
the eighteenth century. It was to some extent en- 
couraged by the wavering action of the advocates of 
the unities, which naturally did not tend to inspire 
implicit confidence in the justice of these rules. Dry- 
den argued for them. In his earlier plays he had 
more than once pointed out how careful he had been 
to observe them with a strictness which the audience 
did not demand. The views expressed by him in the 
preface to ' The Maiden Queen,' he repeated in the 
preface to ' Tyrannic Love,' published three years later. 
In it he said that "the scenes are everywhere un- 
broken, and the unities of time and place more exactly 
kept than are perhaps requisite in tragedy." These 
words represent his earlier attitude. In his later plays 

56 



THE DRAMATIC UNITIES 

he was far from manifesting this scrupulous respect. 
He sometimes regarded these rules; at other times he 
disregarded them, and disregarded them deliberately. 
Shakespeare, whom he had come more and more to 
admire, was influencing both his views and practice. 
In 'The Duke of Guise,' written in conjunction with 
Lee and brought out in 1682, the unities of time 
and place are not observed. It was not the inten- 
tion of the authors, he declared in his vindication of 
the play, to make an exact tragedy. " For this once," 
he wrote, " we were resolved to err with honest Shake- 
speare." The habit of erring is apt to grow upon men, 
and this particular one certainly did so with Dryden. 
He not only repeated the offence, but ceased to apolo- 
gize for it, and in fact became somewhat defiant. In 
the preface to ' Don Sebastian,' brought out in 1690, 
he unblushingly declared that he had not kept the rules 
exactly. These for some time previous he had begun, 
rather disparagingly, to term mechanic. " I knew them," 
he said, " and had them in my eyes, but followed them 
only at a distance ; for the genius of the English cannot 
bear too regular a play : we are given to a variety, even 
a debauchery of pleasure." Accordingly he had length- 
ened the time of the action to two days, on the avowed 
ground that it is lawful for a poet to sacrifice a lesser 
beauty in order to secure a greater. This same hereti- 
cal state of mind, expressed in about the same language, 
can be found exhibited in the preface to ' Cleomenes,' 
produced some two years later. 

Even the professional critics themselves could not 
be trusted to maintain the orthodox view, when it 

57 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

suited their convenience to disown it. In the last 
decade of the seventeenth century Thomas Scott, a 
young graduate of Cambridge University, had caused 
considerable fluttering in the critical dovecotes by de- 
claring that he who wrote by rule would have only 
his labor for his pains. This monstrous sentiment 
appeared in the preface to a play entitled ' The Mock 
Marriage,' which is said to have met with a good 
deal of success. The utterance of such an opinion 
aroused the indignation of Dennis, who took pains to 
point out that while one man may write irregularly 
and yet please, and another may write regularly and 
yet not please, still he who writes according to the 
rules will, other things being equal, always please 
more than he who transgresses thera.^ Dennis proved 
his faith by his works. The remarks with which he 
introduced his plays are interesting for the revelation 
they furnish of the strong hold which the doctrine 
of the unities had then gained. In the advertisement 
to the reader prefixed to his comedy of 'A Plot and 
no Plot,' he called attention to the fact that the action 
takes place inside of four hours. Yet to obtain this 
result he had sacrificed throughout the truth of life 
by representing the characters of the play as pursu- 
ing a course of conduct which could never have been 
followed by any persons outside of Bedlam. Had this 
been the work of another, no one would have been 
quicker than he to comment upon its absurdity. A 
little later in the preface to his ' Iphigenia ' he took 

1 Dennis's letter of Oct. 26, 1695, to Walter Moyle, in ' Letters upon 
Several Occasions.' 

58 



THE DRAMATIC UNITIES 

pains to assure the readers of that tragedy that his 
aim had been to reconcile variety to regularity ; " for 
irregularity in a drama," he observed, " is like ir- 
regularity in life, a downright extravagance, and ex- 
travagance, both on the stage and in the world, is 
always either vice or folly and usually both." 

But the moment Dennis subjected to rigid examina- 
tion the work of another who had conformed to these 
same rules, his eyes were opened to their impropriety, 
not to say enormity. In 1713 he published his remarks 
upon the ' Cato ' of Addison. Never was a more merci- 
less exposure made of the improbabilities and absurdi- 
ties into which a writer can fall by strict adherence to 
the unities of time and place. It was the reading of 
this somewhat famous critique, while still a boy, which 
first led Jeffrey, as he said in 1822, to feel the contempt 
for these vaunted rules which he had ever after re- 
tained.^ No answer could be made to it, and Pope's 
vulgar abuse of the author was itself a confession that 
its arguments could not be met. But it shows how 
great a revolution had taken place in the mind of the 
critic that by this time regularity had lost for him its 
charm. Dennis recognized the difficulty of applying 
the rules of the ancient drama to the government of 
the modern. He pointed out that the chorus rendered 
the unity of place a necessity to the Greek stage. But 
as the chorus had ceased to exist, there was in his 
opinion no longer any compulsion to preserve this 
unity. It was indeed desirable to do so, if it could 
be done without destroying the probability of the 

1 Edinburgh Review, vol. xxxvi. p. 423. 
59 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

incidents. But if it could not be kept without mak- 
ing them seem unreasonable and absurd, far better 
that it should be discarded. 

It would be an error to assume that utterances of the 
kind which have been quoted were confined to those 
whose intellectual superiority or peculiaiity of character 
was sure to be attended with a certain degree of in- 
tellectual independence. During the whole of the 
eighteenth century disbelief in the unities can be found 
expressed by writers, some of them entirely unknown 
to fame now, and certain of them not too well known 
then. A few of them are worth noting. An anony- 
mous treatise upon the tragedy of ' Hamlet,' published in 
1736, denounced the rules as arbitrary and absurd. If 
they prove anything, said the writer, they prove too 
much ; " for if our imagination will not bear a strong 
imposition, surely no play ought to be supposed to take 
more time than is really employed in the acting ; nor 
should there be any change of place in the least," So 
far therefore from deploring, as was then the usual and 
correct thing to do, Shakespeare's disregard of the uni- 
ties, he denied that there was any obligation on his part 
to observe them. He further pointed out that there 
were certain conventions to which we all assent without 
being in the least shocked by their inconsistency with 
the facts of real life. Change of time and place in the 
same play is no more absurd, for instance, than that 
all the men of all nations should speak English.^ 

1 This pamphlet has been ascribed to Sir Thomas Hanmer by Sir 
Henry Bunbury, the editor of his ' Correspondence ' (p. 80). His author- 
ship of it is so improbable that it may be called impossible. The 
sentiments expressed in it are not Hanmer's sentiments. 

60 



THE DRAMATIC UNITIES 

A more signal example of revolt was furnished by the 
commentator Upton. He was steeped in the literature 
of the classics ; yet he spoke somewhat contemptuously 
of Ben Jonson for his deeming it a poetical sin to trans- 
gress the rules of the Greeks and Romans. He was 
himself not inclined to look with disapprobation upon 
the disregard of the unities which had been exhibited 
by Shakespeare. Dramatic poetry was, in his opinion, 
the art of imposing. Accordingly, if the story is one 
whole — that is, if the unity of action has been pre- 
served — the spectator does not take into consideration 
the length of time necessary to produce the incidents 
that occur. It is the same with the unity of place. 
The artificial contrivance of scenes equally imposes 
upon the audience. It enables the hearer to accompany 
without difficulty the poet in the transitions he makes 
from one spot to another. But it is characteristic of 
the timidity of h*is age that Upton, after showing that 
neither the unity of time nor of place is essential, 
proceeded to remark that he was unable to determine 
whether they are essential or not. All he professed 
to do was to question the justice of insisting upon them 
as necessary. Others there were, however, who were 
bolder. Daniel Webb, a writer who had then some 
vogue, brought out in 1762 a work entitled ' Remarks 
on the Beauties of Poetry.' In it he maintained that 
to Shakespeare's neglect of the unities is due the sin- 
gular energy and beauty of his style; that regard for 
these rules is sure to end in substituting narration for 
action, the tumidity of declamation for the excitement 
of passion. 

61 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

After Johnson had given the weight of his authority 
to the denial of the obligatory nature of the unities, the 
number of those protesting became greater, and their 
expression of opinion much more decided. A peru- 
sal of the periodical literature of that day shows that 
dissent was steadily increasing in volume and energy. 
It manifested itself also in formal works, and in some 
instances where it could hardly have been expected. 
A writer of miscellaneous productions, named William 
Cooke, who flourished at that time, published in 1775 a 
treatise on the 'Elements of Dramatic Criticism.' On 
many of the questions at issue between the classicists 
and the now encroaching romanticists, he took very con- 
servative ground. Still he did not consider unity of 
time and place as essential to the modern drama. All 
that he insisted upon was that the time should not be 
exceptionally long, — that, for instance, a child at the 
beginning of the play should not appear a full-grown 
person at the end. This was no uncommon view on the 
part of the disbelievers in the unities ; it had been 
expressed but a little while before by Kames. But the 
extent to which the revolt against the doctrine was 
now beginning to go was evidenced in the biographical 
history of English literature which still preserves, so 
far as it is preserved, the name of Berkenhout. This 
work was published in 1777. The independence of its 
author was exhibited by one peculiarity. Berkenhout 
was an ardent admirer of Voltaire. There was little 
limit to the homage which he paid to the character, the 
genius, and the philanthropy of that writer. In this 
very volume he spoke of him as the scourge of sancti- 

62 



THE DRAMATIC UNITIES 

fied tyranny, and the advocate of oppressed innocence 
who deserved the thanks of all mankind. On the sub- 
ject of the unities, however, he considered that Voltaire 
was wholly wrong. Of these rules Berkenhout spoke 
in terms of vituperation rather than censure. Accord- 
ing to him they were the inventions of dulness, and 
served merely as leading-strings for puny poetasters. 
Shakespeare was perfectly right in rejecting them. The 
result of obeying them led, in Berkenhout's opinion, to 
nothing but the production of monstrosities. " I never 
saw or read," he asserted, " a tragedy or comedy fettered 
by the unities, which did not seem improbable, unnatural, 
or tedious." ^ 

As the century approached its close this voice of 
dissent became bolder and louder. The critical world 
gradually ranged itself into two distinct parties ; but 
it is plain that the one opposed to the unities grew 
steadily more numerous and aggressive. Some there 
were who sought to take a middle course, such as 
Chesterfield had advocated at an earlier period. The 
time was to be somewhat extended, and change of 
place allowed to spots adjacent to the principal scene 
of the action.2 But compromises never satisfy in time 
of war. In general the old belief was stoutly main- 
tained by the writers for the periodical press, and 
these were not unfrequently reinforced by men oc- 
cupying prominent positions in the learned world. 
Shakespeare's "inattention to the laws of unity" was 

^ Biographia Literaria, Preface, p. xxxii. 

2 See Chesterfield, Letter to his son, Jan. 23, 1752 ; and ' Observa- 
tions on Tragedy,' appended to Hodson's 'Zoraida' (1780), p. 87. 

63 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

lamented by Richardson, professor of humanity in 
the university of Glasgow. This author was in many 
ways an enthusiastic admirer of the poet. But the 
wish to keep the public taste from becoming tainted, 
the hope to remove all obstacles which retarded the 
improvement of dramatic writing, compelled him to 
do violence to his feelings by censuring the grave 
fault Shakespeare had committed in disregarding these 
rules. This same conduct on the part of the poet 
naturally fell under the condemnation of Richardson's 
fellow professor in the neighboring university of Edin- 
burgh, Hugh Blair, a perfectly conventional critic of the 
old and now rapidly disappearing type. 

In Scotland, indeed, due possibly to the influence 
of Hume, belief in the unities seems to have lingered 
longer than elsewhere in the United Kingdom; as if 
the ancient military alliance with France had been 
replaced by a literary one. Still it is fair to add 
that Beattie from his northern university joined the 
forces of those opposed to the doctrine, by taking the 
ground that conformity to its requirements was not 
an essential but a merely mechanical rule of com- 
position. He had not made the acquaintance or gained 
the patronage of Johnson in vain ; and in his ' Disser- 
tations Moral and Critical,' which he brought out in 
1783, he followed the footsteps of his leader. He 
attacked the necessity of five acts.^ He repeated with 
variation of phrase and feebler speech Johnson's argu- 
ment against the unities.^ So some years previously 
had the Italian Baretti done in the reply which he 
1 Dissertations, p. 180. ^ ibij, p. iss, 

64 



i 



THE DRAMATIC UNITIES 

had made to Voltaire's attack upon Shakespeare be- 
fore the French Academy. At a still later period we 
find the historian and essayist, Belsham, insisting that 
the unity of action was the only thing of importance 
in the drama; that the supposed necessity of impos- 
ing upon the hearers was a pure illusion; that in 
the representation of a tragedy not only are we not 
deceived, but we should be miserable if we were.^ 
These are the sort of ideas which were becoming 
more and more prevalent. By the time the century had 
reached its close, belief in the doctrine of the unities 
had largely faded away. It did not actually die with 
its expiring breath, but it was in a dying condition. 

Yet for nearly the whole of the latter half of the 
eighteenth century all this dissent, all these attacks 
had but little influence upon the practice of the promi- 
nent playwrights of the time. These accepted the 
unities sometimes gladly, sometimes grudgingly ; but 
in any case they accepted them. Those who found 
most difficulty in conforming to their requirements 
might hope that relief was coming; but if so, it was 
not advanced by any action on their own part. In 
truth, they lived in perpetual awe of the adherents 
of the classical school. These men still held the post 
of control in the official organs of critical opinion, and 
they generally stood ready to fall foul of the venture- 
some author who did not heed strictly the proper ob- 
servance of time and place. It was the one thing 
over which these petty critics kept constant watch. 
Other offences might find palliation, if not forgive- 

1 Essays Historical and Literary (ed. of 1799), vol. ii. p. 551. 
5 65 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

ness ; this was the one unpardonable sin. Berken- 
hout, whose bold denunciation of the unities has just 
been quoted, was cautioned by a friendly reviewer that 
he ought to pay greater deference to public opinion. 
His words showed that he was as heterodox in the 
matter of the drama as he was in that of divinity.^ 
Such was the attitude taken generally by the body 
of professional critics. Now and then, as we have 
seen, a voice was raised in opposition. This occurred 
more frequently as time went on ; but for a good 
while the current ran too strongly to be successfully 
resisted. References to this condition of things are 
not unfrequent in the dramatic literature of the time. 
Dr. John Brown's tragedy of ' Athelstan,' for instance, 
was brought out in 1756. Garrick wrote the epilogue 
to it, and in that commented upon the various kinds 
of taste which the writers for the stage felt bound to 
consult. Among others he specified the " Greek-read 
critic," who speaks with contempt of modern tragedy, 

but 

" Excuses want of spirit, beauty, grace. 
But ne'er forgives her failing — time and place." 

It is in the prologues to plays that we find re- 
flected most clearly the varying beliefs not only of 
different men but of different periods during the 
eighteenth century. But amid the ebb and flow of 
opinions about dramatic art expressed in these pro- 
ductions, one view remains fixed. This is the invari- 
able deference paid to Shakespeare. The concession 
was frequently, almost constantly, made that he was 
1 Kenrick's 'London Eeview/ May, 1776, vol. v. p. 350. 
66 



THE DRAMATIC UNITIES 

exempt from the operation of those laws by which 
the action of others was held in check. But though 
the possession of boundless genius entitled him to 
pardon, no mercy was shown to the admirer who ven- 
tured to imitate his practices. Such a one must not 
seek to shelter himself under the sovereignty of Shake- 
speare. That dramatist had received a sort of divine 
right to act wrong. The prologues expressing this view 
embrace other differences between the classical and 
the romantic drama than the question of the unities ; 
but still this was the one upon which the principal 
stress was almost invariably laid. To diverge from 
its requirements might be permitted to the genius of 
Shakespeare, overriding all rule; but no such liberty 
was permitted to the modern writer. He could not 
hope to approach the excellence of the great dramatist. 
It was therefore all the more incumbent upon him, 
since he was sure to lack Shakespeare's positive merits, 
to free himself from that author's faults or supposed 
faults. As examples both of the view itself and of 
the occasional protests made against its enforcement, 
it may be well to select certain passages from the 
prologues to three plays produced at different periods 
during the century. 

In 1712 Ambrose Philips produced at Druiy Lane 
an adaptation of the Andromaque of Racine under 
the title of ' The Distrest Mother.' The prologue was 
written by Sir Richard Steele. It took up the question 
of the unities, enlarged upon the necessity of the rules, 
and censured particularly those who conveyed their 
audience where they chose, and made the stage rep- 

67 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

resent all countries the sun visited. The inevitable 
objection based upon the conduct of Shakespeare ne- 
cessarily came up for consideration ; and it is in this 
way that it was summarily disposed of by Steele : — 

" But Shakespeare's self transgressed ; and shall each elf, 
Each pigmy genius, quote great Shakespeare's self 1 
What critic dares prescribe what 's just and fit, 
Or mark out limits for such boundless wit 1 
Shakespeare could travel through earth, sea and air, 
And paint out all the powers and wonders there. 
In barren desarts he makes nature smile, 
And gives us feasts in his enchanted isle. 

Our author does his feeble force confess, 
Nor dares pretend such merit to transgress ; 
Does not such shining gifts of genius share. 
And therefore makes propriety his care. 
Your treat with studied decency he serves ; 
Not only rules of time and place preserves. 
But strives to keep his characters entire, 
With French correctness and with British fii'e." 

This is the point of view of the early part of the 
eighteenth century. By the middle of it men had 
begun to long for the freedom which they did not 
venture to assume. Colman, in his prologue to Dr. 
Francklin's 'Earl of Warwick,' brought out in 1766, 
declared that, in times of old, scholars only durst pre- 
sume to judge. Now, he adds, every journalist has 
turned Stagirite. The modern writer, in consequence, 
while envying and admiring the freedom of Shake- 
speare, does not venture to follow in his footsteps, so 
much does the fear of little men hold in check the 
courage of the ablest and boldest. It is in these 
words that Colman pictures the situation : — 

68 



THE DRAMATIC UNITIES 

** In Shakespeare's days when his adventurous muse, 
A muse of fire ! durst each bold license use, 
Her noble ardor met no critic's phlegm, 
To check wild faucy or her flight condemn. 
Ariels and Calibans unblam'd she drew, 
Or goblins, ghosts or witches brought to view. 
If to historic truth she shap'd her verse, 
A nation's annals freely she 'd rehearse ; 
Bring Rome or England's story on the stage, 
And run in three short hours thro' half an age. 
Our bard all terror-struck, and filled with dread. 
In Shakespeare's awful footsteps dares not tread : 
Through the wide field of history fears to stray. 
And builds upon one narrow spot his play, 
Slips not from realm to realm, whole seas between, 
But barely changes twice or thrice his scene. 
While Shakespeare vaults on the poetic wire, 
And pleased spectators fearfully admu-e." 

Thirteen years later Jephson, in the prologue to his own 

' Law of Lombardy,' contrasts the liberty of the ancient 

stage with the restrictions placed upon the modern. 

The only toil of the old writers, he said, was to achieve 

with success dialogue and ryme. The unities either 

they did not know, or if they knew they despised. 

They could open a piece in Mexico, if they chose, 

and end it in Greece. Now all was changed. The 

author appears now before a learned tribunal, quick 

to detect violation of law and ready to condemn it. 

" Nor," he adds, 

" Let presumptuous poets fondly claim 
From rules exemption by great Shakespeare's name ; 
Tho' comets move with wild eccentric force. 
Yet humbler planets keep their stated course." 

If authors anticipate the rod for deviation from rule, 
it is hardly in human nature that critics should refrain 

69 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

from disappointing their expectations. The result was 
that the practice of observing the unities in dramatic 
productions continued to prevail a good while after 
faith in them had generally died out. By the beginning 
of the nineteenth century the belief maintained but a 
lingering life in England. Johnson's dictum that the 
stage was only a stage, and that the spectators knew 
it was only a stage, carried its truth on its face ; other- 
wise the scenes of suifering represented would not 
awaken pity but pain. Minds not already prepossessed 
by mechanical criticism, he had observed, feel no of- 
fence at the extension of the intervals of time between 
the acts. Equally was this true of change of place. 
The maintainors of the old doctrine never stopped to 
ask whether the hearer was actually disturbed by the 
alteration of the scene. As a matter of fact he was 
not. Still, according to their view this was no justi- 
fication. It was his business to be disturbed. If he 
failed to be, his conduct was reprehensible. To the 
existence of fictitious states of mind like this the be- 
lievers in the unities clung to the last. In truth, to 
how late a period the doctrine continued to keep its 
hold over the minds of superior men can be in- 
ferred from the preface which Walter Scott furnished 
to Dryden's ' All for Love.' In this driven from the 
position that the argument in favor of the unities 
depends upon preserving the deception of the scene, 
he proceeded to maintain that it was necessarily con- 
nected with the intelligibility of the piece. Scott 
gravely informed us that it is a cruel tax, both 
upon the spectators imagination and his power of 

70 



THE DRAMATIC UNITIES 

comprehension, to transfer him from a scene which 
he has made up his mind to let pass temporarily for 
one place to another far distant with which he has 
to form new associations.^ Did any one ever actually 
feel this tax upon his imagination or comprehension ? 
Scott never asked. He assumed it, and then asserted 
it. In the character of his criticism we see the belief 
in the unities in its dying agonies. 

Towards the end of the century the playwrights at 
last began occasionally to pluck up courage. From the 
outset, while the critical opinion had been nearly all one 
way, the popular opinion, as we have seen from Dryden's 
words, was largely another. The bolder or more impa- 
tient spirits even among its believers were in conse- 
quence prompted to transgress these rules, and did 
not always withstand the temptation. Early in the 
eighteenth century Mrs. Centlivre, in the preface to 
her comedy of 'Love's Contrivance,' informed us that 
the audience cared nothing about their observance ; and 
therefore, while admitting their justice and the desira- 
bility of heeding them, she had not taken the pains to 
do so in this instance. The same view of the public 
indifference was implied by Aaron Hill a little later. 
In the preface to his ' Elfrid,' brought out in 1710, 
he remarked that he had observed the unities to a greater 
nicety than an English audience would probably think 
necessary; for the scene was confined to a house and 
garden, and the time was no more than the play required 
for its representation. About the middle of the century 
the tragedy of ' Philoclea ' was produced at Covent Gar- 

1 Scott's Dryden, vol. v. p. 287 (1808). 
71 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

den and met with a fair degree of success. It is only- 
worthy of notice here from the fact, commented on at 
the time, that its author, McNamara Morgan, boldly dis- 
avowed allegiance to one of the then established laws of 
the drama, " The unity of place, " he said in his pref- 
ace, " I have disregarded, because I have observed such 
regularity has seldom pleased an English audience." 

Courage and conduct like this were rare. The usual 
state of mind is exemplified by Dodsley, who was care- 
ful to prefix to his tragedy of ' Cleone,' brought out in 
1758, that the time of the action was that of the rep- 
resentation. But aversion to the doctrine, which had 
always been latent among the playwrights, slowly 
spread. In the last quarter of the century it broke 
out into open revolt. Not only were the unities oc- 
casionally violated, but what was more significant, a con- 
temptuous opinion was sometimes expressed of their 
importance. Here, as before, the prologues reveal the 
change that was coming over the minds of men. In 
January, 1785, Kemble brought out 'The Maid of 
Honor,' altered from Massinger. It met with no 
success and it was never printed. But the prologue 
remains. The remarkable thing about that is the view 
expressed in it of the unities. These were no longer 
held up as things desirable in themselves to be ob- 
served, even though it were not done. They were 
something rather to be shunned. This was a sort of 
view which had not unfrequently been taken in the 
case of Shakespeare ; but it was certainly very unusual, 
if not absolutely unprecedented, to apply words Like the 
following to the work of an inferior dramatist : — 

72 



THE DRAMATIC UNITIES 

" Fired by the subject, the nice bounds of art 
His muse o'erleaps, and rushes to the heart. 
Disdains the pedant rules of time and place, 
Extends the period and expands the space ; 
From state to state, without a pause, does run, 
Whilst with a thought, ' the battle 's lost and won : * 
Impetuous fancy rides the veering wind. 
And actionless precision leaves behind." ^ 

This was an old play revamped ; but a few years later 
the same liberty of action was taken with one entirely 
new. In 1792 the dramatist, Thomas Morton, rejected 
the observance of the unities in his historical play of 
'Columbus.' He did it designedly. It is in these 
words the prologue announced his intention: — 

" The rigid laws of time and place our bard 
In this night's drama ventures to discard ; 
If here he errs — he errs with him whose name 
Stands without rival on the rolls of fame; 
Him whom the passions own with one accord 
Their great dictator and despotic lord." 

Even this attitude, little apologetic as it was, did not 
long continue. In time not only were the unities 
violated, but all reference to the fact ceased. When 
that omission became general, it was clear that belief 
in them had lost all its vitality. It was only a question 
of time when disregard of their requirements would be- 
come the merest matter of course. It was only a mat- 
ter of a little longer time when playwrights would 
arrive at the situation which it was long supposed 

1 This prologue was written by the Hon. Henry Phipps, afterward 
Lord Mulgrave. It can be found in the ' European Magazine,' vol. vii. 
p. 142, and in the 'London Magazine,' vol. iv. (new series) p. 137. 

73 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

that Shakespeare himself had occupied. They would 
violate the rules in happy unconsciousness that any 
rules ever existed. 

There was, however, a good deal more to be said 
on this subject than had been said. But it was not 
then said in England ; nor was the demolition of the 
scientific basis upon which the doctrine of the unities 
pretends to rest, due to English criticism. In that 
country the champions of Shakespeare had stood, as 
regards this particular point, almost entirely on the 
defensive. They did not deny the perfect propriety 
of the rules, if one chose to observe them, no matter 
what was the character and conduct of the piece ; 
what they denied was merely the necessity of their ob- 
servance. Even in the case of the very few who 
went farther, it was to the feelings they appealed 
and not to the reason. Berkenhout's attack on the 
doctrine, for instance, is pure denunciation. He offers 
no argument; he simply expresses a personal opinion. 
It was reserved for the man of another country to 
proclaim Shakespeare as the true modern inheritor of 
Greek art. It was left for him to assume the of- 
fensive and carry the war into the enemy's territory; 
to maintain that the vaunted deference to the re- 
quirements of the unities boasted of by the French 
dramatists, was due to imperfect comprehension or 
wilful perversion of the principles laid down by the 
ancients ; that these dramatists had mistaken the in- 
cidental for the essential, and even then, after mak- 
ing it essential, had gone about, not to conform to 
it honestly, but to evade it, to circumvent its plain- 

74 



THE DRAMATIC UNITIES 

est provisions by devices whicli enabled them to keep 
up a show of obedience to the doctrine while violat- 
ing its spirit. Little did the men of that time 
either in France or England suspect, even less would 
they then have been disposed to acknowledge, that 
in Germany had arisen a dramatic critic far greater 
than either Voltaire or Johnson. Yet this is the 
position which few will now be disposed to deny 
to Lessing. His recognition of Shakespeare's su- 
periority to modern dramatists, not merely in poetic 
achievement but in poetic art, had been proclaimed 
several years before ; but it was not until 1767, in 
the successive numbers of the Hamburgische Drama- 
turgies that he gave the reasons for his faith. Much 
has been written since on the subject, and much more 
in quantity than he wrote ; but Lessing's comparatively 
brief discussion of it still remains unsurpassed. To him 
belongs the credit of being the first to demonstrate the 
inapplicability of the unities to the modern drama ex- 
cept under special conditions^ — conditions which the 
modern author is generally unwilling to observe. 

Germany has often shown a disposition to assert 
that it was she who first appreciated the greatness 
of Shakespeare. No assumption has been more in- 
dignantly scouted by English and American students 
of the poet. In one way there is a great deal in the 
claim that is peculiarly ridiculous. At the time at 
which we have arrived Shakespeare was no better 
known in Germany than he was in France, if in fact 
so well. He was not so much depreciated, indeed, as 
he was ignored. What acquaintance existed with his 

75 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

writings was confined to a very small body of men. 
There had been a few scattered translations of single 
plays. Of twenty-two of them Wieland had pub- 
lished a version between 1762 and 1766. But this 
had not made Shakespeare known. The work was 
but little read. To this fact Lessing himself bears 
testimony that cannot be impeached. He commented 
on the indignation he aroused by his perpetual in- 
sistence upon the superiority of the great English 
dramatist to Corneille and Racine. "Always Shake- 
speare, always Shakespeare!" he represents his im- 
patient countrymen as exclaiming, " and we cannot 
even read him." He therefore took the opportunity 
to inform them of something which they apparently 
preferred to forget. It was that a translation of the 
poet already existed. It is not yet completed, he 
added, and yet no one troubles himself any longer 
about it.^ This would be decisive, if indeed any proof 
of it were needed, against the pretence that apprecia- 
tion of Shakespeare had its origin in Germany. That 
country indeed was at this time dragged hand and 
foot at the car of French criticism ; and there is some- 
thing almost pathetic in the way in which Lessing 
occasionally refers to the intellectual servitude under 
which his countrymen were so far from groaning that 
they hugged their chains. To strike off the shackles 
by which they were fettered was his constant aim ; 
yet at times there clearly came over his spirit a feel- 
ing of doubt and almost of despair at the apparent 
hopelessness of the task. 

1 Hamburgische Dramaturgie, No. 15, June 19, 1767. 
76 



THE DRAMATIC UNITIES 

But though England owes nothing to Germany for 
the appreciation of Shakespeare as a poet, the latter 
country may justly claim that it took the lead in 
establishing upon solid ground his supremacy as a 
dramatic artist. The admiration expressed for him 
in his own land was then, and to some extent has 
since remained, a blind admiration. On the question 
of his art liis most enthusiastic advocates spoke igno- 
rantly when they did not speak hesitatingly. Such 
was not the case with Lessing. There was neither 
lack of insight nor of knowledge on his part, nor 
of the confidence which is based upon them. Beside 
his keen analysis and masterly exposition of principles, 
most English criticism of that day seems peculiarly 
shallow and inconclusive. In the consideration of 
the doctrine under discussion he laid down at the 
outset the principle that the unity of action was the 
only thing the ancient dramatists really cared about, 
and that the other unities were mere incidental con- 
sequents of it. To these latter they would have paid 
no heed, had not the introduction of a body of persons, 
constituting the chorus, who were always present on 
the stage, or absent from it only for brief intervals, 
necessitated the selection of a limited ^^time and place 
for the action. Even under such conditions there 
was no rigid observance of these requirements. There 
was no scruple about disregarding them, if higher ef- 
fects could be procured. But as a general rule the 
Greeks accepted the situation honestly. They made 
use of the restriction of time and place as the reason 
for sin>plifying the plot. They cut away everything 

77 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

that was superfluous. They reduced the action to a 
singleness which rendered it independent of events 
that required for their accomplishment length of time 
and change of place. This was their ideal. It was 
not always attained, to be sure; but it was always 
kept in mind. 

Now the French — and this was equally true of the 
English who had both preceded and followed them in 
their practice — had not honestly observed the rules. 
The action of the play was no longer simple. On the 
contrary, it was made exceedingly complex. The chorus 
was abandoned ; but the unities of time and place, which 
the chorus had alone made of importance, were lifted 
from their subordinate position and treated as indispen- 
sable to the proper representation of the play. As in 
the crowded modern stage these rules in their practical 
working were too oppressive to be followed in their 
strictness, expedients of various kinds had been set 
up to evade the rigidity of their requirements. A 
spurious unity of place was established. The scene 
was supposed to be one and the same spot. Actually, 
however, the spot was indefinite enough to represent, 
under the changing conditions of the drama, several 
distinct places. Again, for the unity of a single day 
was substituted the unity of indefinite duration, in 
wliich no one spoke of the events that marked the 
passage of the twenty-four hours. 

It was this mechanical unity against which Lessing 
protested. It was, according to him, not in conformity 
with the rules of the ancients, still less binding upon the 
practice of the moderns. But he took much more 

78 



THE DRAMATIC UNITIES 

advanced ground. In combating the delusion which 
then prevailed among his countrymen in regard to the 
regularity of the French drama, he struck a blow at 
the unity of time as observed in most modern plays, 
from which it has never recovered. His argument has 
certainly not yet been met successfully; perhaps it 
would be truer to say that no attemjDt has been made 
to meet it. Does a man, Lessing asked, necessarily 
regard unity of time because he represents a certain 
number of acts as taking place within twenty-four 
hours? The answer is obvious. It will dej^end en- 
tirely on the nature of the acts performed. Are they 
such as can properly take place within the period speci- 
fied ? The word " properly " is here of utmost import- 
ance. There may perhaps be no physical impossibility 
of the commission of the acts in the time allotted. But 
the phj^sical possibility is not the main consideration. 
Is there a moral possibility of the events happening in 
a single day which in the drama are credited to that 
day? In a world of rational beings — and this is the 
world with which the stage is supposed to deal — could 
the actions represented as performed in twenty-four 
hours have been really committed ? The physical unity 
of time is not enough. It is the moral unity which de- 
mands much more consideration. The violation of the 
former will often be known but to few, while the vio- 
lation of the latter comes home to the consciousness of 
every one. All men are not acquainted with the geo- 
graphical situation of places. If therefore a journey 
between two points which it requires more than twenty- 
four hours to make is represented in a play, the viola- 

79 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

tion of the unity of time will be recognized only by those 
who are familiar with the distance traversed. But every 
person can feel the ridiculousness of portraying events 
as happening in a single day which from his own experi- 
ence or observation he knows could not have taken place 
in several. The dramatist, therefore, who cannot pre- 
serve the physical unity of time save at the expense of 
the moral, has sacrificed what is essential in art to what 
is purely accidental. 

Lessing's point of view was far from being a new one. 
For that it was too obvious. It had been indicated by 
Racine himself in the preface to his Berenice, in which 
he is supposed by many to have said what he did for the 
purpose of reflecting upon the multitude and variety of 
events found in the plays of Corneille. Whatever his 
motive, he insisted upon simplicity of action, and conse- 
quently denounced the introduction of a great number 
of incidents. " It is only truth to life," he wrote, " which 
affects us in tragedy. But what truth to life is there 
when in one day a multitude of things takes place which 
could hardly happen in several weeks?" Similar ex- 
pressions of opinion can be met with not unfrequently. 
La Place, in the preface to his translations from the 
English drama, called attention to the habit, in which the 
French writers indulged, of compressing in their plays a 
vast variety of action into the space of a few hours. He 
pointed out the improbability of such representations as 
a serious objection to the doctrine of the unities. The 
same view was taken by Lord Chesterfield. He remarked, 
as one of the faults of the French stage, its disposition to 
crowd and cram things together to almost a degree of 

80 



THE DRAMATIC UNITIES 

impossibility from too scrupulous adherence to the uni- 
ties.^ Doubtless there were many others to whom the 
same reflection must have occurred. It was Lessing, 
however, who was the first to bring it out sharply and 
distinctly, to enlarge its scope and importance, and to 
reveal clearly its damaging character. By no one else 
had it been stated so clearly as an argument against the 
unities, or had been put so forcibly. In this sense he 
may be called its originator. 

The difficulty, therefore, which always besets the 
writer who seeks to observe the unities, is to give 
to the action taking place within the limits of the 
time and place assigned the appearance of probability 
or even of possibility. It is a difficulty which has 
sometimes been successfully overcome. More often 
it has been evaded, as there has already been occa- 
sion to point out, by a vagueness which leaves un- 
certain the length of time which has elapsed. More 
often still it has been treated as no difficulty at all. 
The large majority of modern plays which profess to 
regard the unities cannot endure successfully the test 
of Lessing's principle. There is no moral possibility 
that the events represented as happening in them can 
have happened in the time given; in some cases not 
even the physical possibility. In order therefore to 
conform to a mechanical ride, the reason of the spec- 
tator is outraged by being asked to believe that some- 
thing has taken place in a certain number of hours 
which he knows could never have taken place in twice 
or even twenty times the number allowed. 

1 Letter to his son, Jan. 23, 1752. 
6 81 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

It was in the course of his examination of Voltaire's 
Merope that Lessing formulated and delivered this 
damaging criticism. He applied it generally to the 
plays of the great French dramatists; but it is pos- 
sible to apply it with equal success to the greater 
number of English pieces which set out to observe 
the unities. They constantly make a demand upon 
the credulity of the hearer for which no exactest ob- 
servance of artificial rules can compensate. The fact 
can be illustrated by scores of examples. In this place 
it may be worth while to test by this principle a pro- 
duction of the man who was not only the stoutest up- 
holder of the doctrine, but who was the first to announce 
that Shakespeare lacked art because he disregarded 
it. For this purpose it is fair to take not one of his 
poorest but one of his very best pieces. Let us select 
•• Volpone, or the Fox.' This comedy has received un- 
stinted praise from the day of its first appearance. By 
some it has been regarded as Jonson's best play, and 
few will be found to deny that it deserves a goodly 
share of the praise it has received. Yet an analysis 
of the plot will furnish a striking proof of the justice 
of Lessing's criticism of the way in which the unity 
of time is nominally maintained, while really set at 
naught by its advocates. 

Before proceeding to the main point, however, it 
is worth remarking that in this comedy the unity of 
action — the highest unity of all — has been but im- 
perfectly preserved. The characters of Sir Politic 
Would-be and his wife, and of the gentleman travel- 
ler, Peregrine, have no vital connection with the rest 

82 



THE DRAMATIC UNITIES 

of the play. The two former are tacked to it by what 
is the flimsiest as well as the clumsiest of fastenings. 
They contribute really nothing to the development of 
the plot. They have been dragged into it for no 
other purpose than to give Jonson an opportunity to 
attack English persons and practices that he deemed 
fair objects of satire. In one instance only does Lady 
Would-be do enough for a short time — when she comes 
forward to denounce Coelia — to justify her having any 
place in the piece at all. Even that is lamely brought 
about. The last character, Peregrine, has no part what- 
ever in the real business of the play, and the episode 
of the revenge he takes upon Sir Politic Would-be is 
a mere patch upon it. All these personages could be 
cut out of the comedy entirely without affecting the 
progress of events and with perceptible improvement 
to its perfection as a work of art. This is a considera- 
tion wholly independent of the skill or success with 
which they have been portrayed. To that all the praise 
may be given which any one is disposed to bestow. It 
is only from the point of view of art — upon which 
Jonson laid so much stress — that the introduction of 
these characters is criticised. 

We now proceed to give an account of the events 
which are represented as taking place within the space 
of about twelve hours; for in this play the time ex- 
tends from sunrise to sunset. Volpone, a Venetian 
magnifico, though in the enjoyment of vigorous health, 
has for years been pretending to be at the point of 
death. The object of this course of conduct is to 
heap up wealth by gifts of money and valuables from 

83 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

men who are flattered with the hope of inheriting his 
vast possessions. Accordingly we have at the outset 
a number of visits paid in succession to the supposed 
dying man by several persons, — a lawyer, an old gentle- 
man, and a merchant. Each one, under the impression 
that he is likely to be the heir, brings a rich present. 
After these have come and gone, Volpone learns from 
his parasite of the beauty of Coelia, the wife of one 
of these greedy seekers after his fortune. She, how- 
ever, is immured at her home and kept under jealous 
guard from all approach. In order to obtain a sight 
of her, he now proceeds to dress up as a mountebank 
doctor, and then sets out to dispose of his wares in 
the piazza directly under her window. She looks out, 
and seeing her he becomes at once deeply enamored. 
By the machinations of the parasite she is dragged 
later to the house of the supposed helpless invalid 
by her scoundrel of a husband. Left alone with Vol- 
pone, he shows himself at once in his real character, 
and she is only saved from ravishment by the unex- 
pected interposition of another personage, the son of 
the old gentleman, who has been brought to the house 
for a special purpose. The rescuer and the rescued 
complain to the authorities. They in turn are com- 
plained of in a forged tale which imposes upon the 
expectant greedy heirs themselves. A trial ensues. 
The husband denounces his wife, the father his son. 
In consequence the guiltless pair are sent to prison. 

After the successful result of the trial Volpone 
makes up his mind that he will pretend to die. He 
draws up a will leaving his fortune to his parasite. 

84 



THE DRAMATIC UNITIES 

Then he places himself in hiding where he can watch 
the behavior of the persons who suppose themselves 
his heirs. These all appear at his house as soon as 
they receive the news of his death. From his place 
of concealment he amuses himself with the exhibition 
they make of their disappointment and wrath, as soon 
as the will is shown. To enjoy their vexation still 
more, he manages to dress himself in the garb of an 
inferior officer of the law. This his parasite has been 
enabled to secure for him by making its owner drunk 
enough to be stripped. In the disguise thus obtained 
Volpone waylays the men who had been seeking to 
inherit his riches, and taunts them with the failure of 
their hopes. But, as an unexpected consequence of 
this conduct on his part, the case is reopened through 
the agency of the irritated lawyer. A new trial takes 
place. After various turns of fortune in the course 
of it, the truth at last comes out. The innocent are 
freed, and justice is pronounced at once upon the guilty 
parties. 

These are the main incidents of the plot. The mere 
recital of them is sufficient of itself to show that a 
series of events has been represented as taking place 
in the compass of a dozen hours which in real life 
could hardly be conceived of as having occurred in 
as many days. There are minor details, of which 
space forbids mention, which still further enhance the 
grossness of the improbability. Let it be conceded 
that there exists in this instance no physical impossi- 
bility of performing in the time given the various acts 
described. The greater moral impossibility of their 

85 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

accomplishment still remains. As one illustration out 
of several, no court of law which aimed at justice 
ever proceeded or could proceed in the rapid manner 
here indicated. In the space of what can be at best 
hardly three hours two separate trials are conducted. 
In each a state of facts is developed not merely dif- 
ferent but entirely contrary. Yet the perplexing ques- 
tions thus raised do not perplex the tribunal. It 
removes doubts and settles difficulties with a rapidity 
which puts to shame the proverbial charge of the 
law's delay. Yet all this and numberless other viola- 
tions of the facts of life as we know them, we are 
expected to accept without protest, because the author 
has paid strict attention to certain artificial rules. Jon- 
son himself was proud, and in some respects justly 
proud, of this play. Especially did he felicitate him- 
self upon its regularity, upon its being constructed in 
accordance with the principles of highest art. In the 
prologue he boasts that in it he 

" Presents quick comedy refined, 
As best critics have designed. 
The laws of time, place, person he observeth, 
From no needful rule he swerveth." 

Yet the gross improprieties which examination re- 
veals as pervading this play owe their existence to 
the author's success in conforming the action to these 
very unities which he looked upon as needful to the 
perfection of the piece. The art it exhibits is of the 
kind which comes from the observance of the rules. 
It was the kind of art of which Shakespeare was 
ignorant or in which he did not believe. 

86 



CHAPTER III 

THE DRAMATIC UNITIES 
III 

It was neither to the protest of Dr. Johnson against 
the doctrine, nor to Lessing's scientific demolition of 
its pretensions, that the stage owes its deliverance from 
the incubus of the unities. The criticism of the Ensr- 
lish author affected, without question, public opinion. 
As time went on, it affected it more and more. Still, 
as we have seen, it did not at the outset affect the 
practice of the prominent playwrights. Still less was 
any influence exerted by the German author. Faint 
echoes only of Lessing's reputation had begun to reach 
England in the eighteenth century. These, further- 
more, celebrated him as a creative writer and not as a 
critical one. In truth, the great work, in which he had 
attacked the precepts of Voltaire and had exalted 
Shakespeare above all modern dramatists, was trans- 
lated into French long before it was apparently heard 
of at all by Shakespeare's countrymen. 

One can easily get a false impression ftom assertions 
of this sort. Lessing came in time to influence pro- 
foundly the critical estimate taken of Shakespeare. 
This was because he furnished men with solid reasons 
for a faith which, begot in the first instance of blind 
admiration, was held in uneasy defiance of what was 

87 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

then loudly proclaimed as art. But it was an influence 
which in the beginning was transmitted through others. 
In Germany its action was direct, immediate, and far- 
reaching. Not so in England. At the time of which 
we are speaking, not only was Lessing little known in 
that country, he was less regarded. It was not until 
1781 that a translation of his Nathan der Weise appeared 
at London. It was the work of a German exile, named 
Raspe, who had left his country for his country's good, 
but who has achieved a certain distinction in English 
literature as the creator of Munchausen. If contempo- 
rary notices can be trusted, the version was a very in- 
different one. But while in some instances Lessing, as 
author of the original, was treated with respect, the 
contemptuous attitude then frequently assumed towards 
German productions in general was often exhibited 
towards him personally with peculiar offensiveness. 
The two leading reviews of the day commented upon 
his play with scant courtesy. "Considered merely as 
a drama," said one of them, "whatever may be its 
author's reputation in Germany, it is unworthy of 
notice."^ This, however, may be deemed almost eulogy 
when contrasted with the insolent tone in which the 
other permitted itself to speak of a literature of which 
it knew nothing, and of a great writer belonging to it 
whose name it was not even able to spell correctly. It 
began by describing the work just mentioned as " a heap 
of unintelligible jargon, very badly translated from the 
German original, written, it seems, by G. T. Lessling." 
It then added that the author fell infinitely beneath all 

1 Monthly Review, vol. Lxvi. p. 307. 



THE DRAMATIC UNITIES 

criticism. It concluded by declaring that if the present 
time were, as the translator asserted, the golden age of 
German literature, "it appears by this specimen to put 
on a very leaden appearance." ^ 

Nor did lapse of time seem to raise Lessiug's reputa- 
tion in the English critical world. An adaptation of 
his Minna von Barnhelm was brought out in 1786, 
under the title of ' The Disbanded Officer. ' Like 
Shakespeare, he too, it appears, had come to have 
his blind and bigoted partisans. Another review felt 
called upon, in consequence, to fix for him his precise 
position. "Though Lessing," said the critic, "has 
probably little claim to the elevated rank that has been 
assigned him by his injudicious admirers, he is not, we 
think, entirely destitute of merit. . . . We are our- 
selves acquainted with some of his performances which 
we do not recollect with disgust." The reviewer was 
disposed to conclude that, on the whole, he was perhaps 
of not inferior brilliancy to Colman.^ Of criticism of 
this sort it is hard to decide whether the arrogance or 
the ignorance be the greater. In no case, however, 
would much weight have been attributed to the opin- 
ions of a writer of whom the leading exponents of 
public opinion could venture to speak without rebuke 
in terms like these. There were, doubtless, a number 
of persons then in England, whom the reviewers would 
have felt justified in calling injudicious, who were 
impressed by the views Lessing put forth. He had, 
however, to wait until the next century before the 

1 Critical Review, vol. lii. p. 236. 
« English Review, vol. viii. (1786) pp. 348-355. 
89 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

justice of these views was widely recognized in that 
country. 

But, in truth, the influence of the greatest names 
who were opposed to the doctrine of the unities was 
impaired by the fact that their practice did not har- 
monize with their precepts. The principles they incul- 
cated could hardly be expected to control the conduct 
of others when it had not been able to control their 
own. Farquhar had argued against the necessity of 
observing the unities; nevertheless, he had observed 
them. Fielding ridiculed them; in his practice he 
respected them. Johnson spoke with contempt of the 
reasons given for regarding them ; in the only play he 
ever produced, the action was limited to one day and 
to one place. By the two first-mentioned writers an 
insubordinate spirit was sometimes manifested in the 
way they obeyed these rules. They occasionally went 
as far in defiance of them as they dared. But however 
loosely they observed them, the fact remains that they 
kept up the pretence of observing them. Lessing, like- 
wise, was the inspirer of a revolution in his own 
literature, in which he himself took no part. He had 
demolished the reason, or rather the lack of reason, 
upon which the support of the unities was based; yet 
his own plays are written in accordance with their 
requirements. The subservience of writers like these 
to practices they disliked and in truth despised shows 
how little the greatest men can hold their own against 
the spirit of their age. Each of them felt the tyranny 
of a public opinion which caused him to act as if he 
believed that to be true which he knew to be false. 

90 



THE DRAMATIC UNITIES 

The doctrine of the unities was not, indeed, broken 
down by elaborate disquisitions to prove that it was 
founded upon false assumptions. These, undoubtedly, 
contributed to the result. When the movement was 
under full headway, they did much to hasten the fall of 
the fabric which, however, they had not been the first 
to undermine. Long before Johnson's powerful voice 
had been lifted up against these rules, faith in them 
had been steadily sapped by the frequency with which 
the plays of Shakespeare were acted. During the 
eighteenth century, it must be borne in mind, only two 
places in London had ordinarily the right to exhibit the- 
atrical pieces. That one circumstance forbade the pro- 
longed repetition of the same play. Accordingly, to vary 
the performances, there was kept on hand a large number 
of dramas. To this collection of stock pieces Shake- 
speare furnished far the largest number. In the fre- 
quency with which plays of his were acted, no author, 
living or dead, rivalled the great dramatist. This was 
true of the whole century. Rarely was it the case that 
a month passed without the performance of several of 
his pieces at one or both of the two houses. Maimed 
and mutilated as they often were, they could not be so 
tortured out of shape as to hide from the general view 
the superiority of the dramatic laws he obeyed and the 
dramatic methods he followed. His so-called irregular 
plays interested men, inspired them ; the so-called regu- 
lar plays of others made them yawn. The existence of 
Shakespeare was, in truth, to the advocates of the uni- 
ties a gigantic and somewhat unpleasant fact. He 
could not be ignored; he could not be set aside. He 

91 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

had violated the established rules of the drama and had 
succeeded. They conformed to them religiously and 
failed. 

Let it not be imagined, however, that any attempt 
is made here to deny the merit of modern plays which 
observe the unities, or to maintain that a powerful 
drama cannot be produced upon the lines they prescribe. 
Such a contention would be only repeating on the side 
of the opponents of this doctrine the erroneous assump- 
tions which its advocates put forth. He who ventures 
to take a position so extreme can hardly escape a feel- 
ing of serious discomfort if called upon, in conse- 
quence, to decry the productions of Corneille, Racine, 
and Moliere, — to say nothing of some of the most bril- 
liant pieces which have adorned the English stage. 
Nor, furthermore, need it be denied that there are con- 
ditions in which the observance of the unities may be 
a positive advantage. Especially will this be the case 
when the characters are few and all the incidents of 
the plot are directed to the accomplishment of a single 
result. The concentration of the action is likely to 
contribute, in such pieces, to the effect of the represen- 
tation. He who sets out to imitate the simplicity of 
the Greek drama will usually find himself disposed to 
adopt, as far as possible, its form. Within its limita- 
tions great work can be accomplished by the drama 
which regards the unities, and, to some extent, it will 
be great work because of its limitations. 

This fact, so far from being denied, has been fully 
acknowledged by many of those who have been fore- 
most in denying the obligatory observance of these 

92 



THE DRAMATIC UNITIES 

rules. Furthermore, it has not unfrequently been acted 
upon. Goethe, for instance, not only disregarded the 
unities, but characterized them as " the stupidest of all 
laws." ^ Yet he recognized the propriety and advan- 
tage of conforming to them under certain conditions. 
To him Byron, in 1821, dedicated in most flattering 
terms the volume containing ' Sardanapalus, ' ' The Two 
Foscari, ' and ' Cain. ' In the preface to these plays the 
English poet avowed the most thorough-going devotion 
to the doctrine, which by that time had fallen into gen- 
eral disuse and disfavor in his own country. Without 
the unities, it was his opinion, there might be poetry, 
but there could be no drama. He was aware, he con- 
tinued,- " of the unpopularity of this notion in present 
English literature; but it is not a system of his own, 
being merely an opinion, which not very long ago was 
the law of literature throughout the world, and is still 
so in the more civilized parts of it." Goethe was a 
good deal affected by the tribute paid him in the dedi- 
cation, coming from the man for whose genius he had 
the profoundest admiration. But it furnished him an 
equal amount of amusement — as it did also Byron's 
reviewer, Jeffrey — to find, at this late time of day, 
the one author who had set all ordinary conventions at 
defiance, who had raged at the restraints imposed by 
prevalent social beliefs and customs, not only submit- 
ting meekly to shut himself up inside the stone walls 
of the unities, but insisting that it was only within 
those penitentiary precincts that dramatic virtue could 
flourish. Yet while Goethe set no store by these rules, 
1 Eckermann's 'Conversations of Goethe' (under 1825). 
93 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

he respected them wherever he found them of service. 
Early falling under the influence of Shakespeare, he 
had followed the freedom and boldness of his practice. 
But when he imitated the Greek tragedy, as in his 
Iphigenie, he naturally adopted the simplicity of its 
methods. In this play the characters are but five ; the 
sole end aimed at is the restoration of the priestess to 
her own land. Hence the action does not need to take 
up but part of a day, and finds ample place for its 
representation in the grove before Diana's temple. 

The distinction between the two methods is, in fact, 
fundamental. The drama which disregards the unities 
gives the widest possible scope for the display of the 
different passions which, by turns, agitate the heart 
and control the conduct. In it we behold men operated 
upon by the varying impulses and stirred by the vary- 
ing feelings which affect, at times, the lives of us all. 
Their behavior is constantly modified or altered by new 
agencies that unexpectedly thrust themselves into the 
action of the piece. They fall, at intervals, under 
the sway of opposing motives. But the drama which 
regards the unities, when produced in accordance with 
the conditions of its being, lacks complicated situa- 
tions. It is not so much complex man that is brought 
upon the scene, as man under the storm and stress of a 
single dominant passion. No conflicting interests dis- 
tract our attention from the main one. Men, as we see 
them in the life about us, are not so single-minded. 
They may be ambitious, they may be revengeful, they 
may be jealous, they may be lover-like, but they are 
also sure to be something else ; and it is this view of 

94 



THE DRAMATIC UNITIES 

their nature which finds natural opportunity for its full 
expression in the ample field of the Shakespearean 
drama. Yet it is certainly reasonable to believe that 
one phase of character can be brought out much more 
adequately and effectively, if that can be made the one 
to which attention is wholly directed. 

There are two plays in our literature, both written 
by men of genius on the same subject, which illustrate 
the distinction between these two methods of scenic 
representation. They are here of special interest, be- 
cause in the development of their plots they deal with 
the same situation, and furthermore introduce some of 
the same leading personages. In the case of the two 
principal ones the difference of portrayal is peculiarly 
noteworthy. These are the characters of Antony and 
Cleopatra, as set forth by Shakespeare and by Dryden. 
No one, of course, would think of placing the latter 
author by the side of the former, least of all in dramatic 
power: the comparison, therefore, cannot fairly be ex- 
tended to results, but must be limited to the methods 
employed. The time of Shakespeare's play of ' Antony 
and Cleopatra ' extends over a period of ten years. The 
scene is laid sometimes in Alexandria, sometimes in 
Rome, and occasionally wanders over portions of 
Europe and Asia. Dryden's play — styled ' All for 
Love ' — abounds in reminiscences and imitations of 
that of his great predecessor. But the time purports 
to be limited to the prescribed twenty-four hours. In 
the course of it Antony and Cleopatra are both repre- 
sented as dying ; and the action in no instance is carried 
on outside of Alexandria. 

95 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

In certain ways the * Antony and Cleopatra ' of 
Shakespeare is one of the most astonishing exhibitions 
of the many astonishing exhibitions the poet has 
afforded of that almost divine insight and intuition 
which enabled him to comprehend at a glance that 
complete whole of which other men, after painful toil, 
learn but a beggarly part. The student of ancient hiij- 
tory can find in the play occasional disregard of precise 
dates. He can discover, in some cases, a sequence of 
events which is not in absolutely strict accord with the 
account of them that has been handed down. But 
from no investigation of records, from no interpretation 
of texts, will he ever arrive at so clear and vivid a 
conception of the characters of the actors who then took 
part in the struggle for the supremacy of the world. 
Nowhere in ancient story or song will he find, as here, 
the light which enables him to see the men as they are. 
It is a gorgeous gallery in which each personage stands 
out so distinct that there is no danger of misapprehen- 
sion or confusion as to the parts they fill. Antony 
appears the soldier and voluptuary he was, swayed alter- 
nately by love, by regret, by ambition, at one moment 
the great ruler of the divided world, at the next reck- 
lessly flinging his future away at the dictation of a 
passionate caprice; Cleopatra, true to no interest, fas- 
cinating, treacherous, charming with her grace those 
whom she revolts by her conduct, luring the man she 
half loves to a ruin which involves herself in his fate ; 
Octavius, cool, calculating, never allowing his heart to 
gain, either for good or evil, the better of his head, 
showing in early youth the self-restraint, the caution, 

96 



THE DRAMATIC UNITIES 

the knowledge of the world which belong to advancing 
years ; the feeble Lepidus, striving to act the part of a 
reconciler to the two mighty opposites, with whom the 
irony of fate has thrown him into conjunction: these 
and half-a-dozen minor characters appear painted in 
clear and sharp outline on the crowded canvass of 
Shakespeare ; while in attendance, like the chorus of a 
Greek tragedy, stands Enobarbus, commenting on every 
incident of the great world-drama which is acted before 
his eyes, ominously foreboding the declining fortunes 
of his chief in the moral ruin which carries with it 
prostration of the intellect, and pointing to the inevi- 
table catastrophe of shame and dishonor to which events 
are hurrying. 

Not a single trace of these characteristics, of these 
conflicting currents of thought and feeling, is indi- 
cated, or even suggested, in the regular drama which 
Dryden produced. His whole play is made to turn 
upon the infatuation for Cleopatra which has taken 
possession of the Roman commander, and against the 
force of which the loyalty of Ventidius struggles to no 
purpose. There are few things said and fewer things 
done by Antony which remind us of the great general, 
of the dishonored soldier, of the fallen master of half 
the world. He is little more than a sentimental love- 
sick swain, while the Egyptian queen has lost nearly 
every one of the characteristics with which she has 
impressed the ages, and is exhibited to us as display- 
ing the behavior of a tender-hearted, affectionate, and 
wholly romantic school-girl. Scott, who is at his worst 
in his comparison of this play with Shakespeare's, 
7 97 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

assures us that its plan must be preferred to that of the 
latter's on the score of coherence, unity, and simplicity; 
and, further, that as a consequence of the more artful 
arrangement of the story, the unity of time, like that of 
place, so necessary to the intelligibility of the drama, 
has been happily attained.^ 

It is the last assertion alone which concerns us here. 
How has this unity of time been attained? It has 
been preserved by the studious suppression of all ref- 
erence whatever to its passage. Events are crowded 
into it which history is not alone in assuring the scholar 
did not happen in the space assigned: common sense 
further assures everybody they could not possibly so 
have happened. Numerous minor incidents, however 
important, are not necessary to be considered in the 
examination of the play. But in this one day Antony 
goes out to fight a great battle. We only hear 
of it; there is no representation of it. On his re- 
turn he reports that five thousand of his foes have 
been slain. As battles go in this world, the mere de- 
spatching of so large a number of men would encroach 
heavily upon the time allotted. Further, at a later 
period in this one day, the Egyptian fleet sets out to 
attack the enemy. Instead of fighting the Romans 
it goes over to them. Then follow the consequences 
of defeat and despair. This is the happy attainment of 
the same old spurious unity of time which cheats our 
understanding at the cost of our attention. Yet, 
though marked by these and other defects, Dryden's 
play is, after its kind, an excellent one. There are in 

1 Scott's Dryden, vol. v. p. 288 (1808). 
98 



THE DRAMATIC UNITIES 

it passages of great power, which will explain the favor 
with which it has been held by many. Had its author 
been gifted with dramatic genius, as he was not, he 
would doubtless have made it far more effective. But 
under the limitations imposed by the critical canons he 
accepted, neither he nor any one else could have drawn 
the picture of life which we find in the wonderful corre- 
sponding creation of the great poet of human nature. 

Men felt the force of scenic representation of this 
latter sort long before they were convinced of the jus- 
tice of its claim to be considered art. The frequency 
with which Shakespeare's plays were acted in the eigh- 
teenth century could not fail to produce a steadily 
deepening impression upon the beholders. It was only 
a question of time when the truths they silently taught 
as to the value of his methods should be loudly pro- 
claimed by many. It was only a question of a little 
more time when they should be accepted by all as the 
fullest exemplification of that art which seeks to hold 
the mirror up to nature. But it needed transcendent 
power like his to emancipate the mind from the tyranny 
of rules which cramped its energy and restricted its 
scope, and to give it the opportunity of becoming the 
exponent of the complex life we lead to-day. This is 
as true of other races as of ours. So long as Shake- 
speare's plays were unknown in Germany, Germany 
looked upon the French drama as the representative of 
the highest art. It accepted, submissively, the canons 
of French criticism. Acquaintance made with the 
work of the former was rapidly followed by repudia- 
tion of the practice of the latter. A greater triumph 

.cr U. 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

— greater because achieved under much more unfavor- 
able conditions — was gained by the English dramatist 
in the land where the doctrines of classicism had been 
held and practised most stoutly. It is not to be for- 
gotten that it was under the banner of Shakespeare that 
Victor Hugo and his allies fought and won the battle 
of Ernani, and freed the French stage from the tram- 
mels which for centuries had cramped the freedom of 
its movements. 

These successive conquests are justly deemed proofs 
of the excellence of his dramatic art. But a further 
question now arises: Was he himself aware of its 
excellence? Was the deliverance he wrought due, so 
far as he personally was concerned, to accident or to 
design ? Did Shakespeare, in disregarding the unities, 
disregard them because he was ignorant of their exist- 
ence, or because he saw that in most instances they 
were unsuited to the requirements of the modern stag.a? 
About this point there has been difference or uncer- 
tainty of opinion from the middle of the eighteenth cen- 
tury down to our own day. The Shakespeare editor, 
Richard Grant White, in one of his latest essays, in- 
sisted that the observation of the unities by the drama- 
tist, so far as he did observe them, was a mere matter 
of convenience, and not at all due to purpose.^ This is 
one of the very few positive pronouncements upon the 
subject. The large majority of critics — more espe- 
cially in the eighteenth century, when the question 

1 Studies in Shakespeare, p. 28. Mr. White further says, that in 
'Love's Labor's Lost ' the unities of time and place are preserved abso' 
lutely ; but the time of the play cannot be less than two days. 

100 



THE DRAMATIC UNITIES 

excited far greater interest than now — have not ven- 
tured to decide the point. Dr. Johnson, who was the 
first of Shakespeare's editors that presumed to deny the 
obligation of observing the unities, proclaimed himself 
as distinctly unwilling to express a definite opinion. 
The sagacity of Theobald, as might have been expected, 
did not fail him here. As a classical scholar he took 
the orthodox classical view. But he had the insight to 
see that Shakespeare's disregard of the unities was ow- 
ing not to ignorance but to intention ; though he drew 
from the dramatist's words some unauthorized infer- 
ences as to his opinions. 1 In the general opprobrium 
which fell upon Theobald this observation of his 
escaped the notice of nearly every one. Steevens, how- 
ever, who had a genius for discovering and not men- 
tioning what his predecessors had found out, announced, 
later, that he was disposed to believe that Shakespeare 
was acquainted with the unities, and had disregarded 
them consciously; and Malone, unheeding or ignorant 
of Theobald's previous assertion, credited Steevens with 
originating the view. 

It was not, however, a view generally entertained. 
The opinion on this point, held by those most favorable 
to the dramatist, was rarely confident, and the expres- 
sion of it was almost invariably guarded. If Shake- 
speare knew of the existence of these rules, said his 
advocates, he deliberately broke them; if he did not 
know of them, he showed by his course how much supe- 

1 See Theobald's note in vol. ii. p, 181, of his Shakespeare, edition 
of 1733, upon the remark found in act v. scene 2, of ' Love's Labor 'a 
Lost,' that a twelvemonth was " too long for a play." 

101 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

rior to art is genius. The attitude generally assumed 
by the critics of the time is best indicated by Johnson 
in the following words; "Whether Shakespeare," he 
wrote, " knew the unities, and rejected them by design, 
or deviated from them by happy ignorance, it is, I 
think, impossible to decide and useless to enquire." ^ Is 
it so useless to enquire ? Upon the answer to the ques- 
tion depends the view whether the poet was a conscious 
artist, or whether he blundered by a lucky carelessness 
into the right method of procedure. This is certainly 
a matter of some importance in making up our estimate 
of the man. For if he was utterly unacquainted with 
these rules, the assumption of Voltaire cannot be suc- 
cessfully controverted that he was a barbarian of genius, 
with whom inspiration took the place of knowledge 
and reflection. 

Again, is it so impossible to decide? Certainly a 
number of questions at once present themselves to the 
mind which render improbable, to say the least, this 
assertion of the impossibility of reaching a conclusion. 
Is it likely that the greatest dramatic genius of his time 
should have been ignorant of what must have been dis- 
cussed by every playwright whom he was in the habit 
of meeting daily ? Could the man, who built one of his 
own plays upon the ' Promos and Cassandra ' of Whet- 
stone, have failed to read the attack upon the English 
stage for its disregard of the unities which was made by 
Whetstone in the preface to that production? Could 
the intimate friend of Ben Jonson have been unac- 
quainted with Ben Jonson 's opinions, bearing in mind, 

1 Johnson's Shakespeare, vol. i. Preface (1765). 
102 



THE DRAMATIC UNITIES 

as we must, that Ben Jonson was not one of those 
retiring persons who are in the habit of keeping their 
opinions to themselves? Two of the comedies of that 
dramatist — ' Every Man in his Humor ' and ' Every 
Man out of his Humor ' — had been originally per- 
formed by the company of which Shakespeare was a 
member. He had taken a leading part in the first of 
them, in which Jonson strictly observed the unities, 
and must have read the second, in which he commented 
upon them. Would he not have been likely to gain a 
slight inkling, at least, of the nature of the dramatic 
laws which his contemporary had illustrated in act and 
directly discussed in words ? Such inquiries carry with 
them but one possible answer. Indeed, if there be 
foundation for the story of the wit-combats which 
Fuller reports as having taken place between the two 
leading playwrights of the time, we can feel reasonably 
confident that the question of the unities was one 
of the very topics about which controversy raged most 
fiercely. 

i. It is hard, in truth, to understand how any editor of 
* King Henry V. ' can miss not merely the recognition of 
Shakespeare's acquaintance with these laws, but also 
the perception of the hostile criticism to which the 
violation of them subjected the dramatist even then. 
This particular piece appeared near the close of the six- 
teenth century. That was the time in which Jonson 
was setting out on his mission of bringing the English 
stage into conformity, as far as possible, with the 
classical. One distinguishing feature of this play is 
that to every act is prefixed a prologue delivered 

103 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

by a so-called chorus. The ostensible business of 
the prologue is to inform the hearer of what is com- 
ing. But it does something more than impart informa- 
tion. It defends the romantic drama, or, if one chooses 
to put it in another way, it apologizes for the practices 
to which, from the beginning, the romantic drama had 
been addicted. It is largely a reply to the criticisms of 
that school of writers of which we have already had a 
representative in Sir Philip Sidney. Naturally the 
chorus takes occasion to defend the constant and glar- 
ing violation of the unities of time and place which 
occur in the course of the play. Its observations are 
very much of the same sort as those we have found 
made later by Farquhar and Dr. Johnson. The spec- 
tator is asked to perform the very easy task of travelling 
with his mind. He is to suffer himself to be trans- 
ported in imagination over periods of time and dis- 
tances of space. The opening prologue prepares us for 
this view. In it we are told that 

" 'T is your thoughts that now must deck our kings, 
Carry them here and there ; jumping o'er times, 
Turning the accomplishment of many years 
Into an hour-glass." 

In the prologue to the second act the same idea is 
repeated. There the audience is specifically requested 
to "digest the abuse of distance." The scene is to 
be transferred from London to Southampton, and it is 
added, — 

•* There is the playhouse now, there must you sit : 
And thence to France shall we convey you safe, 
And bring you back, charming the narrow seas 
To give you gentle pass." 
104 



THE DRAMATIC UNITIES 

Again, in the prologue to the fifth act, those of the 
audience who are acquainted with the story of the play 
are desired 

" To admit the excuse 
Of time, of numbers, and due course of things, 
Which cannot in their huge and proper life 
Be here presented." 

Words of this sort would never have been used, had 
there not been going on at the time violent discussion 
as to the propriety of the methods of representation 
then followed upon the English stage. The writer of 
the prologue was not seeking to impart unneeded 
knowledge to others, but to justify the course adopted 
by himself. His eye was fixed not upon the possible 
hearer who sought information about the coming inci- 
dents of the play, but upon the very tangible critic who 
objected to its form. 

Nor had controversy on this same subject died out 
when, towards the close of his dramatic career, Shake- 
speare produced ' The Winter's Tale.' In this the 
defiance of conventional rules of every sort was carried 
to its farthest extreme. The novel from which it was 
taken, with its Bohemian seacoast and its island shrine 
of Delphos, was bad enough ; but to the critics of the 
eighteenth century these seemed comparatively venial 
offences when contrasted with the numerous other viola- 
tions of the everlasting proprieties with which the piece 
bristles. It must be conceded that the play carries the 
liberty of the romantic drama fairly up to the point of 
license. The jumbling together of ancient times and 
customs and countries with modern; in the same piece 

105 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

Apollo delivering oracles and a puritan singing psalms 
to hornpipes ; a pagan religion prevailing while a Rus- 
sian emperor reigns, and a statue has just been exe- 
cuted by the rare Italian master, Julio Romano, — 
these and other not dissimilar details would tend to 
make the conventional classicist shudder and the most 
liberal-minded hesitate. Still, by nothing were the 
critics of this school so shocked as by the disregard 
of the unities. There is no question as to the audacity 
with which this is manifested. The action takes place 
in countries far apart. A child born at the beginning 
of the play appears on the stage at its close as just 
married. Compared with such improprieties, even the 
grave-diggers' scene in ' Hamlet ' was pardonable. The 
disgust which these violations of the rules caused 
the professional critics prevented them from doing 
justice to the skill with which the whole piece had 
been constructed. They did not see that what was in 
art strictly impossible had been accomplished by the 
genius of the poet; for the play within the play — 
apparently annihilating the unity of action — had been 
made to contribute to the development of the main plot. 
CAt any rate, the work, whether well or ill done, was 
done as deliberately as it was audaciously. An exami- 
nation of it leaves no doubt on that point. In his own 
mind the dramatist was clearly satisfied with the wis- 
dom of his proceeding. \ It requires more dulness than 
rightfully belongs even to the dull to suppose that 
Shakespeare was not himself aware of the numerous 
ways in which he had trampled upon beliefs accepted 
by many. Yet it is noticeable that the only point 

106 



THE DRAMATIC UNITIES 

where he thinks it worth while to justify his course is 
in the allowance of sixteen years to intervene between 
the third and fourth acts. This was the one thing 
which, more than all else, would subject him to the 
censure of contemporary criticism. Again, therefore, 
he calls in the chorus to his aid. This, assuming the 
character of Time, puts in his plea. " Impute it not a 
crime," he says, 

" To me and my swift passage that I slide 
O'er sixteen years, and leave the growth untried 
Of that wide gap." 

If your patience will allow this, adds the chorus, I 
shall turn my glass and develop the plot of the play 
as if you had slept the interval between. There is no 
mistaking the meaning of these words; it is idle to 
pretend that Shakespeare did not know what he was 
doing. What possible crime could be imputed? There 
was but one. The unity of time had been violated. 

What has now been said on this subject is sufficient 
to show that to whatever cause Shakespeare's rejection 
of the unities was due, it was not due to his lack of 
acquaintance with them.^ But there is more direct 
evidence even than that already brought forward ; and 
when we come to consider the date of its appearance 
with other accompanying circumstances, it will be found 
very significant. Disregard of the unities of time and 
place may spring from indifference or ignorance. Not 

1 I have not introduced any reference to the " scene individable or 
poem unlimited " of scene 2 of act ii. of ' Hamlet/ though I believe the 
words refer to the unities ; but they are susceptible of a different in- 
terpretation, and, furthermore, the argument is not in need of their 
help. 

107 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

SO regard for them. Unlike the kingdom of heaven, 
that can never come save by observation. No man ever 
conformed to these laws in any original dramatic com- 
position unless he did it consciously; to comply with 
their requirements demands unremitting toil and atten- 
tion. Now, of the thirty-seven plays of Shakespeare 
there are two in which he observes the unities faith- 
fully. One of these — ' The Comedy of Errors ' — may 
perhaps be thrown out of consideration. As it is based 
upon a play of Plautus, it naturally follows his treat- 
ment. 'Accordingly there would be nothing antece- 
dently improbable in the fact that the modern author 
should, without thought, subject himself to the same 
limitations as did the ancient. But the case is differ- 
ent in the other of these two plays, — ' The Tempest. ' 
This is purely Shakespeare's own. Any original of it 
has remained as undiscoverable as is the enchanted 
island where its action takes place. Like ' The Win- 
ter's Tale,' it is conceded to belong to the latest period 
of his dramatic activity. Unlike that play, it is re- 
markable for its strict observance of the unities. Even 
a superficial examination shows that this could not 
have been the result of accident; a close examination 
furnishes unmistakable proof of the existence of thor- 
oughly meditated design. 

The action of the comedy is represented as taking 
place in less than four hours, not much longer than 
would be required to perform it upon the stage. Not 
only is it thus limited, but there is a perfectly plain 
purpose to make prominent the fact that it is so limited. 
During the whole progress of the play the unity of time 

108 



THE DRAMATIC UNITIES 

is something we are never allowed to forget. At tlie 
very beginning our attention is called to it; at the very 
end we are reminded of it again and again. In the 
second scene of the first act Prospero asks Ariel what 
is the hour of the day. "Past the mid season," is the 
answer. Two o'clock is then distinctly specified as the 
precise time; the interval between that and six, it is 
added, must by both be spent most preciously. Nor in 
the middle of the play is the time allowed to slip by 
unnoted. In the first scene of the third act Miranda 
tells Ferdinand that her father is hard at study, and 
that for three hours they will be free from his presence. 
At the end of the same scene Prospero says that he has 
much business appertaining which must be accom- 
plished before supper-time. In the scene following, 
Caliban tells Stephano that he must take advantage of 
the opportunity offered; for it is his master's custom 
to sleep in the afternoon. At the opening of the fifth 
act Prospero again asks Ariel as to the time. " How 's 
the day?" is his question. The answer given is that 
it is "on the sixth hour;" "at which time," continues 
Ariel, "you said our work should cease." Not long 
after, Alonso speaks of himself as having been wrecked 
"three hours since." A few moments later he dis- 
covers Ferdinand and Miranda playing at chess, and 
remarks to his son that the eldest acquaintance of him- 
self and his companion "cannot be three hours." To 
confirm, still further, the impression of the brevity of 
the time, the boatswain, on his appearance, speaks of it 
having been but " three glasses " — that is, hours — since 
they had given up the vessel as split. There are other 

109 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

instances of the same general character, though not so 
distinctly marked, that could be cited. But surely 
the ones given are enough. Can it be assumed that these 
unnecessary references to the time — what Falstaff 
would have called the "damnable iteration" of it — 
are a mere accident ? The strict observance of the laws 
found here, -be it remembered, was not far removed, 
as regards date, from the lawless ' Winter's Tale. ' 
Different impressions will be produced upon different 
minds by the same fact. To me it conveys satisfactory 
proof that Shakespeare, when he set out to produce 
* The Tempest, ' had deliberately determined to show to 
the adherents of the classical school that he could not 
only write what they called a regular play better than 
they could themselves, but could make it conform even 
more closely than they generally did to their beloved 
unity of time. 

In the discussion of this doctrine there now remains 
one point that merits special attention. This is the 
prominence which the passion of love has come to 
assume in the modern drama, especially in comedy. It 
is something which of itself renders the observance of 
the unities utterly unsuited to the function of that 
drama in representing with fidelity the manners of 
modern life. ^ Often discussed, as the subject has been, 
it has never met with the consideration to which, in 
this respect, it is entitled. True, the remark is familiar 
that the difference in the treatment of the passion of 
love and the consequent difference in the position and 
conduct of the female characters constitute a distinction 
which is fundamental between the ancient and the mod- 

110 



THE DRAMATIC UNITIES 

ern drama. The attitude taken by each towards woman 
is not merely dissimilar, it is practically opposite. The 
representation of love in any genuine sense of the word 
belongs to modern comedy alone. The earlier ancient 
comedy, as in Aristophanes, knows nothing of it at all ; 
the later knows only a spurious form of it. What goes 
under that name is almost invariably lust. There is 
in none of the ancient plays any such personage as the 
heroine, in the sense in which we understand the word. 
The woman with whom the hero is supposed to be in 
love is usually in the power of a procurer or procuress. 
She is bought and sold as if she were a domestic animal. 
Even in the few instances in which, from the outset, 
the intent is honorable marriage, she who in the modern 
drama would occupy the foremost place continues in 
the ancient to keep her subordinate position. She has 
no control over her own destiny. She has no will, 
apparently, save that of those to whom her birth or the 
circumstances of her fortune have made her subservient. 
For any action likely to determine the fate of this pas- 
sive instrument in the hands of others, the space of a 
day would furnish as ample time as that of a year. 

Readers of Plautus and Terence will confirm the 
truth of this portrayal ; and it is needless to say that the 
plays of these authors represent the character and plots 
of the lost Greek comedy. In them the female char- 
acters corresponding to the heroines of the modern 
drama belong, generally, to two classes. In the one, 
the place she takes is purely negative. Her business 
is to be and to suffer, but not to do. Often she never 
speaks or is spoken to ; she is simply spoken of. One 

111 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

can hardly be expected to feel much interest in this 
helpless being, who never says anything to be remem- 
bered, and never does anything to be admired. In the 
case of the women of the second class, the one who 
would correspond to the modern heroine frequently 
takes an active part in the play; but her intellect gains 
at the expense of her character. She is almost invari- 
ably a courtesan. In her it is a mistress the hero is 
seeking, not a wife. Furthermore, if female characters 
are introduced who chance to possess virtue, they are 
usually disagreeable. It is the shrew, the scold, the 
jealous wife, the intriguing mother-in-law that comes 
upon the stage. To all this there are exceptions ; but 
they are too few to counteract the prevailing impression 
the ancient comedy gives. Deserving of admiration in 
numerous ways, as are the works it has handed down, 
it is not its portrayal of womanly qualities that would 
recommend it to the modern reader. In scarcely a 
single one of these plays is there any attempt to depict 
the spiritual side of love as opposed to the sensual. In 
this respect Terence is perhaps worse than Plautus. 
In five of his six extant plays the woman, nominally 
an object of affection, has been either debauched or 
ravished by the man to whom she is finally given in 
marriage. 

Modern comedy reverses completely the situation 
here depicted. In it the heroine occupies a position 
of prominence. She stands forth wholly, or in part, as 
the arbiter of her own destiny. In what she says or 
does we are as much interested as in what is said or 
done by the hero. Compared with her, the other female 

112 



THE DRAMATIC UNITIES 

personages of the play occupy a subordinate place. All 
this is due not merely to the altered position of woman, 
but to the fact that the passion of love in the highest 
manifestation of the feeling has come to be the principal 
subject of stage representation. This was an inevitable 
result of the general line of development which the 
drama took. It left, first, the region of political or 
religious controversy in the stormy strife of which its 
youth was nurtured, gave up the task of supporting a 
side or advancing a cause, and passed on to the broader 
domain of history and legend treated from the point of 
view of art pure and simple. Even there it did not 
tarry long. It began to deal more and more with the 
social forces that operate upon the lives of us all. The 
moment this became the prevailing tendency, the pas- 
sion of love was sure in the vast majority of instances 
to show itself as the underlying motive upon which the 
unfolding of the plot turned. This was a course of 
development impossible to the ancient comedy. In that 
the helplessness of the heroine, or of her who should 
have been the heroine, in disposing of her own fate, 
and the conditions which encompassed her in the social 
life then existing, cut off the possibility, and perhaps 
the idea of a reciprocal interchange of lofty sentiments 
of love, and limited the representation of the passion 
itself largely to its purely sensual aspect. A sugges- 
tion of this same state of things, arising from the same 
cause, can be found also in the Elizabethan drama. 
But there is not enough of it to efface the picture of 
love in its highest form, divested of all impurity, exalt- 
ing the woman and ennobling the man. 
8 113 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

This description of the difference between the ancient 
and the modern drama undoubtedly applies to comedy 
rather than to tragedy. In the latter there are both 
room and reason for the operation of many other feel- 
ings than that of love. Revenge, remorse, envy, 
hatred, pride, ambition, and scores of similar states 
of mind can easily be made the leading motive, about 
which the interest of the play centres. Any one of 
them may constitute the principal cause of the calam- 
ities which attend the development of the plot or wait 
upon its conclusion. But it is otherwise with plays 
which are bound by the laws of their being to end 
fortunately. In them the subject of love was certain, 
in time, to form the groundwork of the large majority 
of the themes selected for dramatization. The very 
nature of the feeling made such a result inevitable. It 
is the most universal of passions. It appeals to the 
widest circle of sympathies. It arouses the keenest 
interest in men of all ages and in minds of every class. 
So wide, indeed, is the sweep of the feeling, so power- 
ful is the hold it has upon us all, that when once we 
find ourselves acquainted with the characters in the 
raggedest kind of a love-story, we cannot get wholly 
rid of the desire to see what becomes of them at last. 

In this respect there has been a close analogy between 
the development of the drama and of the novel. Both 
of them have gone through what are essentially the 
same changes. The resemblance extends, indeed, to 
the feelings with which the result of these changes has 
been at times regarded. In the case of the novel the 
old tale of chivalry or adventure gradually gave way to 

114 



THE DRAMATIC UNITIES 

the modern tale of society witli the story of love as the 
leading feature. The other was not lost, to be sure, 
but it sank to an inferior position. This condition of 
things has been far from agreeable to some writers. A 
frantic effort has been put forth occasionally by the 
experimental novelist to get rid of the everlasting youth 
and maiden, to substitute some other interest for that 
of their sorrows and joys. He feels a sense of mortifi- 
cation and irritation that the world's regard should 
gather about the incidents of the story only so far as 
they bear upon the fortunes of two insignificant beings, 
whose sole claim to attention is that they care enough 
for each other to endure suffering and even encounter 
death rather than undergo separation. Yet efforts to 
introduce other motives have not often met with much 
favor. It is in but few instances that they continue to 
please. It is fairly safe to say that a general adoption 
in the novel of other interests than that of love will 
meet with permanent success about the time a radical re- 
construction of human nature has been carried through 
to a successful completion. 

i Naturally, the playwrights of the Elizabethan age 
were quick to seize upon this theme. They recognized 
the possibilities that lay in appealing to feelings pos- 
sessing an interest so universal. Love speedily came to 
take the place of prominence in scenic representation; 
In some plays it formed the exclusive subject of atten- 
tion. It entered, more or less, into those that set out 
to deal with other motives. The use made of it, the 
predominant position it occupied, was noticed by Bacon 
in one of his essays which was first published in 1612. 

115 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

"The stage," be wrote, "is more beholding to love than 
the life of man. For as to the stage, love is ever 
matter of comedies, and now and then of tragedies : but 
in life it doth much mischief, sometimes like a siren, 
sometimes like a fury." It was not the sort of siren 
that would ever have allured Bacon, nor the sort of fury 
that would have threatened his peace. In him the 
emotional nature, never very strong, was stifled by the 
excessive development of the intellectual; and though 
his mental greatness would enable him to comprehend 
fully the power which this particular passion exerted 
over the lives of men, it could not give him any sym- 
pathy with its spirit. But the remark is interesting as 
the comment of one of the acutest of observers upon the 
extent to which love had taken possession of the stage 
in his day. 

' Nor did its progress cease with the progress of time. 
It tended to intrude itself increasingly into tragedy, 
much to the disgust of the adherents of the purely 
classical school. This became especially characteristic 
of the French drama of the seventeenth century. Love 
took, then, complete possession of their tragic stage, 
and from that extended its sway over the English. 
The cause of its rapid spread is clear. In both coun- 
tries the popular taste demanded it. The consequence 
was that men began to find unsatisfactory those pieces 
in which it did not appear. The influence of this feel- 
ing was fully exemplified, as we shall see later, in the 
changes that were made in Shakespeare's plays to fit 
them, in this respect, to the taste of the times. From 
them, as originally written, the passion of love was by 

116 



THE DRAMATIC UNITIES 

no means absent; but it had never been given the place 
of absolute monarch. But the men who criticised him 
for his lack of art, and remodelled his dramas to make 
them conform to it, foisted the subject into tragedies 
from which he had properly left it out. The most 
flagrant example of this was the alteration of 'King 
Lear.' Yet the introduction into it of love was one of 
the reasons why this abominable version so long held 
the stage to the exclusion of the original. By eliminat- 
ing the French king, the adapter was enabled to repre- 
sent a mutual affection as existing between Edgar and 
Cordelia. He thus lightened the tragic atmosphere 
of the play by the alien interest of a love-story, and, 
furthermore, of a love-story that ended happily. ? 

No one will pretend that a love-story is essential to 
comedy. As we have seen, the passion plays a far less 
important part in the ancient drama than in the mod- 
ern, besides being there of a much more debased type. 
From the former, even in its later period, it is some- 
times absent altogether. One of the most famous of 
the plays of Plautus is the Captivi. By many it has 
been regarded as his very best. Yet in it not a single 
female character appears ; not a word is said about love 
between the sexes. It is for this reason, perhaps, that 
the prologue claims for it that there are in it no licen- 
tious lines unfit to be uttered. The epilogue further 
adds that the play is founded upon pure manners, that 
there is in it no wenching, no intriguing, no exposure 
of a child. Still such plays are exceptional in the later 
ancient comedy, and comparatively little known to the 
modern. In the latter, from almost the very outset, 

117 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

the knowledge that interest could be most easily aroused 
in the audience by the introduction of a love-story put 
a pressure upon the writer from which he could with 
difficulty escape. We can see the working of this influ- 
ence in * The Comedy of Errors. ' The Menoeehmi of 
Plautus, upon which it is founded, shows no female 
characters but those of the courtesan and the jealous 
wife. When the English dramatist came to adopt the 
plot, he modified materially the tone of the whole 
play. A number of new personages were introduced. 
None of them appeal to the modern reader more than 
Luciana. If Shakespeare added to the farcical element 
of the comedy by furnishing the two closely resembling 
masters with two servants possessing the same char- 
acteristic, he added to its human interest by making 
Antipholus of Syracuse fall in love with the sister of 
his brother's wife. 

There were, undoubtedly, authors of the time who 
looked with little favor upon the place the story of love 
had come to take in dramatic representation. This 
dislike was in part, due to the deference paid to the 
spirit that animated the ancient drama. This feeling 
was strengthened in some cases, however, by the con- 
scious inability to portray the passion successfully. 
The subject is of universal interest, to be sure, but its 
delineation is often attended with peculiar difficulty. 
Unless conveyed with exceptional skill and force, the 
expression of intense feeling, where there is no neces- 
sary sympathy with it on the part of the hearer, tends 
to excite ridicule rather than respect. The fact is 
constantly exemplified in life. Under ordinary condi- 

118 



i 



THE DRAMATIC UNITIES 

tions the perusal of love-letters in which one has no 
personal interest arouses little other feeling than that 
of amusement. Their extravagance, however real to 
the writer, seems only laughable to him who reads them 
in cold blood. Men who felt themselves unable to 
depict the passion with felicity accordingly yielded with 
reluctance to the pressure in this direction which the 
wishes of the audience exerted. With the ancients 
worthy of closest imitation, love, they argued, occupies 
an inferior position. Why should not their example 
be followed? The dramatists, so thinking, acted, as 
far as they were permitted, upon this principle. Wher- 
ever possible, other interests were substituted. No 
reader of Ben Jonson can fail to recognize the incon- 
spicuous and almost contemptible part which love, 
or rather the semblance of love, plays in his comedies. 
The neglect of it as a leading motive in one way ren- 
dered easier, as we shall see, the task of conforming to 
the unities. It has, however, affected the permanence 
of his reputation. The lack of the interest of a love- 
story in his plays has been one cause of the steady 
decline of his popularity since the seventeenth century, 
just as the presence of it in the plaj^s of his greater 
contemporary has been an element which has constantly 
contributed to the increasing favor in which he has 
been held. 
V Shakespeare himself could hardly have been ignorant 
of the skill and power with which he depicted the pas- 
sion. Of the extent to which he made use of it to 
enhance interest there is no question. Not a single 
comedy came from his pen in which it did not either 

119 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

furnish the predominant motive or form a subordinate 
attraction. In every one of them is a love-story, and, 
unlike that of many of his contemporaries, it is a love- 
story almost invariably of a peculiarly pure and delicate 
kind. But in the representation of the feeling he did 
not limit himself to comedy. Love was rightly reck- 
oned by him as one of the passions susceptible of tragic 
treatment, though he did not fall into the mistake of 
the French dramatists in making it extend to all plays 
of this character. Yet to two of his greatest it con- 
tributes a melancholy undertone. Of still another it is 
much more than a part. It is the whole. * Romeo and 
Juliet, ' as Lessing justly said, is the one tragedy in the 
world at which love itself has labored. There is in it 
no gallantry, no intrigue. From beginning to end the 
interest concentrates itself upon the fortune and fate of 
the two whose mutual passion gives a brightness, brief 
as the lightning flash, to the dark background of civil 
strife amid which it is born, and whose death is the 
sacrifice paid for the restoration of civil peace. 

The foregoing facts make clear that Shakespeare 
gladly welcomed the delineation of love as the subject 
of scenic representation. But it is equally evident that 
the stage conditions under which the passion can be 
most successfully portrayed had not escaped his atten- 
tion. As soon as love was made the principal interest 
in the modern drama, difficulties of a peculiar character 
beset him who aimed to observe the unities, — that is, 
if that drama were to live up to its professed ideal of 
holding the mirror up to nature. It is more correct to 
say they beset the writer of comedy. Of this it is an 

120 



1 



THE DRAMATIC UNITIES 

essential characteristic that the conclusion shall be 
happy. Under such a limitation the play, in nineteen 
cases out of twenty, is certain to end with either a be- 
trothal or a marriage. But when the time of the action 
is limited to a single day, obstacles arise at once in the 
way of reaching satisfactorily a termination of this nature. 
Two methods only have been taken or can be taken 
by the writer to extricate himself from the perplexities 
produced by conforming to the unities. The obstacles 
are either avoided altogether, or they are evaded. { In 
the former case the series of events are so carefully 
arranged beforehand that we learn all the past proceed- 
ings from the speeches of the actors. We are simply 
called upon to be present at the denouement to which 
weeks of previous preparation have been tending. This 
is a thing that can be done, and has often been bril- 
liantly done, though it usually involves excessive pains 
on the part of the author. That requirement is indeed 
one of its main disadvantages. The strength of the 
writer must be largely spent in devising ingenious con- 
trivances for bringing about the result at which he 
aims. But more than that, it gives him no adequate 
field for the display of his powers. It sacrifices, in 
particular, what are frequently the most effective scenes 
in representation, the gradual development of mutual 
passion, the removal or overthrow of the obstacles that 
stand in the way of the union of the hero and the 
heroine. Hence it is that brilliant plays of this kind, 
such, for instance, as ' Love for Love ' and * The 
Rivals,' appeal to the intellect much more than they 
do to the feelings. 

121 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

In the other case the obstacles created by the obser- 
vance of the unities are both disingenuously and in- 
artistically evaded. All the circumstances that lead to 
betrothal and marriage are crowded into the space of a 
day or part of a day. Rapid work of this kind is not 
absolutely impossible in real life, but it is highly im- 
probable ; and the writer who draws his subjects from 
real life has no business to venture beyond the limits 
of the probable. In truth, such a course as the one 
indicated is so repugnant to our sense of propriety that 
the portrayal of it must be carefully disguised in order 
to prevent it from revolting the feelings. In the ancient 
comedy there was no such necessity. The audience 
would have been prepared, had it been necessary, to 
see, without protest, the future of the man or maiden 
arranged for with little or no consultation of their 
inclinations. But this is no longer possible. In mod- 
ern life young people are not disposed of in marriage 
without at least going through the form of asking 
their consent. Their consent implies that there should 
be time enough for the two persons chiefly concerned 
to make each other's acquaintance, and to experience 
sensations to which they can feel justified in giving the 
name of liking, if not of love. But if the method 
under consideration is followed, all these sensations, in 
the drama which observes the unities, must be felt in 
the space of twenty-four hours or less. In that time 
two persons, who have never seen each other previously, 
must develop a wild desire to spend the rest of their 
lives together, 
^ow it might seem that no modern author would 

122 



THE DRAMATIC UNITIES 

venture to take the course just indicated. As a matter 
of fact, it will be found followed in some of our most 
celebrated comedies. The gross violation of propriety 
it implies frequently fails to excite disapprobation, 
because the attention is directed to some other interest 
in the play than that of the one which it nominally 
aims to represent. To illustrate how the observance of 
the unities works in practice, let us select for exami- 
nation two noted specimens of this class of dramatic 
compositions taken from different periods in our litera- 
ture. The first is the work of Ben Jonson, the great 
apostle who preached to a careless age the duty of 
obeying these laws. It is the one called * Every Man 
in his Humor, ' which there has already been occasion 
to mention. This play it is which Swinburne assures 
us, he is forced, in spite of his unqualified love for the 
greater poet, to characterize as "altogether a better 
comedy and a work of higher art than the * Merry 
Wives of Windsor. ' " ^ However true this may be, there 
is no question that in many respects ' Every Man in his 
Humor ' is a brilliant production. The attack con- 
tained in its prologue upon those who had neglected to 
observe the unities of time and place has already been 
given. But later in the same prologue occurs an asser- 
tion which is for us here of special moment. Jonson 
declares that the words and characters in this play are 
such as comedy would choose when she would show an 
image of the times. His satisfaction with what he had 
done cannot, therefore, be questioned. It is accord- 
ingly legitimate to test his conception of what consti- 

1 Swinburne's Study of Shakespeare, p. 121 (American edition), 1880. 

123 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

tutes truth to life by an analysis of the plot of this 
work. From that we shall discover how just is Swin- 
burne's praise of its art, how accurately Jonson has 
succeeded, to use his own words, in showing us an 
image of the time. 

The scene of ' Every Man in his Humor ' lies in Lon- 
don or its immediate suburbs, and the whole action 
takes place within the compass of a few streets. The 
time is just eight hours. The hero of the piece, young 
Knowell, is the son of an indulgent but somewhat 
anxious father, who loves him sincerely, and for whom 
he in return expresses and feels genuine affection. He 
leaves his parent's house early in the play in order to 
keep an appointment with his friend Wellbred, who is 
represented as the possessor, like himself, of high quali- 
ties of head and heart. Their place of meeting is the 
Old Jewry. There, at the beginning of the fourth act, 
young Knowell sees for the first time the sister of his 
friend. At least, no previous meeting is indicated or 
suggested. He immediately falls in love with her, and 
she goes through similar motions or emotions in refer- 
ence to him. Through the agency of the brother a 
marriage is arranged, the two proceed to elope, and are 
united without the knowledge and consent of the rela- 
tives most directly and deeply interested. At the end 
of the play they make their appearance as man and 
wife. All this courtship and matrimony is therefore 
carried on and concluded in the space of four hours. 
There is no reason to suppose that the father would 
have opposed the son's choice, though, undoubtedly, in 
real life, if possessed of ordinary sense, he would have 

124 



THE DRAMATIC UNITIES 

opposed this precipitate action. But even with the 
result regarded as a most desirable one, the hero of the 
piece has been guilty, not merely of an act of superla- 
tive folly, but also of a gross breach of filial respect and 
duty. No one needs to be told that we are not shown 
here an image of the times in the sixteenth century or 
in any century before or since. Men have done things 
as foolish and graceless as the actions just described, 
but not the kind of men that have been here brought 
upon the stage. 

This is no solitary instance. In a number of Jon- 
son's plays a similar condition of things is depicted. 
Two persons, who have never seen each other before, 
meet and agree to marry at once. But instead of con- 
fining ourselves to this period, let us take another 
example from a piece which holds, and justly holds, a 
place as one of the favorite comedies of our dramatic 
literature. It is Goldsmith's play of ' She Stoops to 
Conquer,' which was produced in 1773. In this the 
author, following the practice of his age, crowded all 
the events into a few hours. In the conduct of them, 
however, there is some respect paid to human nature 
and to the ordinary customs of life. The natural objec- 
tions to precipitate action are obviated as far as pos- 
sible. Two persons meet, who have never met before, 
to be sure, but they are dutifully prepared to fall in 
love with each other at first sight, so far as that result 
can be secured beforehand by parents and guardians. 
Accordingly, it does not come upon the mind with any 
particular sense of shock to find that the hero and the 
heroine have managed in less than half a day to fall in 

125 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

love with each other after a fashion, and are in con- 
sequence disposed to encounter the risks of matrimony. 
Nevertheless the absurdity exists. The reason we are 
not struck by it is that we are diverted from any con- 
sideration of the central improbability by the other 
incidents of the play. 

;No situations in the least resembling the two just 
described can be found in Shakespeare. The impro- 
priety of such a representation of life was as apparent 
^ to him as it is to us. I have already tried to make it 
clear that ' The Tempest ' was undoubtedly written by 
him with his eye fixed upon the doctrine of the unities ; 
and that he carried their observance through so un- 
flinchingly that the time of the action is scarcely longer 
than the actual time of representation. It is therefore 
interesting to examine the method he took to meet the 
difficulties which confronted every writer who set out 
to comply with these artificial rules, how carefully he 
made his action in this particular conform to the natural 
feelings of the auditor or reader. In the first place, 
Ferdinand and Miranda belong to the station in life in 
which the wishes of the parties immediately concerned 
were rarely consulted then, and are rarely even now. 
They are of the class of rulers, and royal marriages are 
made to establish or cement alliances between states 
and not between persons. There is therefore nothing 
antecedently improper or improbable in the union. Yet 
even in so doing, Shakespeare defers to the practices 
which prevail in real life. Ferdinand pledges his faith 
to Miranda under the impression that his father had 
perished, and that he himself, in consequence, is a 

126 



THE DRAMATIC UNITIES 

perfectly free agent. But the dramatist is not content 
with mere conformity to these conventions. He not 
only makes the hero and the heroine personally attrac- 
tive, so as to engage their inclinations to each other at 
first sight, but he also calls in to his help the aid of 
that potent magic which operates upon all the other 
characters in the play. Prospero himself attributes this 
rapid falling in love to the agency of Ariel. When he 
sees how Miranda is impressed by the sight of Ferdi- 
nand, he adds, — 

" Spirit, fine spirit ! I '11 free thee 
Within two days for this." 

A little later, after making the following comment on 

the lovers, — 

" At the first sight 
They have changed eyes, " — 

he goes on to say, — 

" Delicate Ariel, 
I '11 set thee free for this." 

In the two plays of Jonson and Shakespeare which 
have been examined we have had an opportunity to 
judge for ourselves which of the dramatists shows the 
higher art. In the one who looked upon himself and 
was celebrated by his adherents as its special represen- 
tative, our feelings are outraged by having the hero 
portrayed in a matter which is to affect his whole 
future, as acting not merely the part of a fool, but of 
an ungracious and ungrateful fool. In the other, deal- 
ing with a similar situation, the work of the conscious 
artist appears in the minutest particulars. Every de- 
tail is in keeping with the demands of human nature. ' 

127 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

No impropriety disturbs us, because everything which 
might tend to produce such an impression has been 
carefully eliminated. Miranda is to us the same peer- 
less and perfect being, the same top of all admiration, 
which she appears to Ferdinand. Without the aid of 
Ariel's magic she conquers our hearts as completely 
and as rapidly as she did that of her lover. The same 
is true of her creator. He has been his own best advo- 
cate. The work of Shakespeare has triumphed over 
that of his contemporaries, has entered into the lives 
of us all, not because he lacked art, but because he 
possessed it. ; 



128 



CHAPTER IV 

THE INTEKMINGLING OF THE COMIC AND THE TRAGIC 

It was his violation of the unities which constituted 
the most flagrant of the sins against art which were 
imputed to Shakespeare. Those who are familiar with 
the kind of criticism that for the hundred years and 
more following the Restoration not simply prevailed 
in England, but vaunted itself exceedingly, will be 
the least disposed to deny the importance which was 
then attached to the doctrine. The difficulties which 
attended its observance were held up as enhancing 
its merit. It is clear, from the reasons pointed out 
in the preceding chapter, that conformity to it not 
only tempted the dramatist to violate that highest 
art which consists in adherence to nature, but fet- 
tered in many ways his genius. One can hardly con- 
ceive the expenditure of time and toil that frequently 
became necessary to secure this artificial product. Yet, 
under the influence of the belief in this doctrine, men 
took pride in their chains. Writers for the stage 
deliberately went about to tie their own hands, and 
honestly persuaded themselves that the work so done 
was of an essentially higher grade than that which 
was accomplished with the hands at liberty. " Art," 
said Voltaire, "consists in triumphing over difficul- 
ties; and difficulties overcome give in every kind of 
9 129 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

production pleasure and glory." The greater the dif- 
ficulty, therefore, the greater the genius of the poet. 
This is a species of argument which, if carried out 
everywhere to its legitimate conclusion, would make 
the man who paints with his toes essentially superior 
to him who paints with his hands. Shallow as is 
the view, Voltaire's faith in it never wavered during 
the whole of his life. 

From the period of the Restoration, therefore, the 
doctrine of the unities began to be accepted as the 
orthodox gospel to which all right-thinking persons 
were expected to conform. During the eighteenth 
century until towards its close it strengthened its hold. 
Belief in it received in England as well as elsewhere 
a mighty impetus from the preaching of Voltaire, its 
most ardent and effective apostle. The editors of 
Shakespeare, until Johnson came, assumed without 
question the correctness of the doctrine. Either by 
direct assertion or by implication they held the great 
dramatist censurable for his disregard of it. Most of 
the believers in it accepted the creed blindly. They 
rarely ventured to ask for the reason of the faith they 
professed. Everything had already been settled, it was 
assumed and asserted, by the wisdom of the ancients ; 
though this, when subjected to close scrutiny, turns out 
now to be nothing more than the folly of the moderns. 
The men of the eighteenth century never seem to have 
had the idea that dramatic art consists in reproducing 
with fidelity the life we live or are capable of living ; 
not in the observance of certain rules, which, however 
germane to the special development of the Greek stage, 

130 



INTERMINGLING OF COMIC AND TRAGIC 

had no more binding authority upon the stage of later 
times than the ceremonial rites of the religion of the 
Jew upon the religion of the Christian. 

It was not, however, disregard of the unities that 
constituted the only charge against Shakespeare. There 
were other precious things in which he had not attained 
to the standard the classicists set up. This failure on 
his part they imputed in a measure to ignorance, but 
mainly to lack of taste. Of that particular quality 
he had not a particle. Criticism of this sort began 
to show itself towards the close of the seventeenth 
century. By the middle of the eighteenth the opinion 
had assumed to many almost the nature of a self- 
evident truth. It is impossible to overlook the in- 
fluence of Voltaire in extending in England itself 
the spread of this view. It did not owe its origin 
to him. It had been entertained and expressed in 
that country before he was born. But he gave it 
renewed vitality ; above all, he gave it general cur- 
rency. Men like Bolingbroke, Chesterfield, and Hume 
did not need to be converted to his views ; but they 
were naturally confirmed more strongly in their own, 
when they found them sustained by the authority of 
the great literary autocrat of Europe. In fact so 
generally taken by professional critics was this esti- 
mate of the greatest of English playwrights that at 
one time it required not only independence, but a 
good deal of hardihood to run counter to a belief so 
widely accepted. Here, as in the unities, Shakespeare 
comes before us not only as the representative of the 
romantic drama but as its champion. It was its 

131 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

methods which he exemplified; it was by his exem- 
plification that they triumphed over hostile criticism 
and were carried finally to victory. 

There was one thing which the classicists professed 
to hold especially dear. It constituted in their eyes an 
essential distinction between their methods and those 
of what we now call the romantic drama. It can 
be designated by the somewhat vague general term of 
propriety. This could be manifested in several ways. 
When we come to the most generally discussed of its 
various applications, we find that propriety required that 
the bounds of tragedy and of comedy should be defi- 
nitely determined and never transgressed. Accord- 
ingly there should be in the same production no mixture 
of the pathetic and the humorous. The tragedy was 
to be all tragic ; the comedy was to be all comic. We 
are able therefore to enter into the feelings with which 
the adherents of the classical school looked upon the 
practices in which Shakespeare indulged. His comedies 
contained painful scenes ; his tragedies humorous ones. 
It was bad enough to violate the unities. But that 
could be explained, even if it could not be pardoned, 
by the assumed general ignorance of his age, involving 
as it did his particular ignorance. But no such pal- 
liating view could be taken, when the course adopted 
by him depended, not on the possession or on the lack 
of knowledge, but upon the presence or absence in his 
nature of certain qualities. A man of genius is bound 
in such matters to set an example to his age; not to 
follow its ill example. This latter Shakespeare had 
permitted himself to do. His action was explained 

132 



INTERMINGLING OF COMIC AND TRAGIC 

variously. The production by him of these mixed 
pieces was stated, negatively, to be due to nothing 
but the utter lack of taste ; stated positively, to be 
due to barbarous taste. But whatever the precise 
cause, there could be no question as to the character 
of the result. He had been guilty of a gross viola- 
tion of decorum. 

Of the two ways in which propriety can be disre- 
garded — the introduction of tragic scenes into comedy 
or of comic scenes into tragedy — it was perhaps im- 
possible to decide which is abstractly the worse. It 
was the former, however, that was more common. In 
fact it was so very common that in the eyes of many 
of the classicists custom had shorn it somewhat of 
its theoretical native hideousness. Tragi-comedy was 
indeed one of the established forms of composition 
during the reigns of Elizabeth and the first Stuarts. 
Its popularity was so wide-spread that even adherents 
of the classical school were at times disposed to re- 
gard it with feelings hardly akin to disfavor. Some 
there were who accepted it as a kind of concession to 
human infirmity, very much on the same ground of 
hardness of heart which suffered the ancient Israelite 
to divorce a distasteful wife. No such countenance, 
however, did this mongrel production, as it was termed, 
meet with from the believers in art pure and undefiled. 
The gonfalon they marched under was to be absolutely 
spotless. It was the business of the comic muse to 
entertain, to delight, to fill our hearts with joy. Not 
once should the black shadow of care be permitted 
to overhang our spirits. Not under any pretext should 

133 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

the slightest thing be introduced calculated to arouse 
for a single moment feelings of grief or terror. What- 
ever else we fail in, was their cry, let us at least not 
fail in propriety. Whatever else we give up, let us not 
forget our fii'st duty, which is to remain faithful to art. 

And tragi-comedy, it came to be a general opinion, 
was not faithful to art. The arguments occasionally 
used to bolster up its pretensions were brushed away 
without ceremony. It had on its side the practice of 
the Elizabethan playwrights. But that of course was 
no authority. If these men were not rude and igno- 
rant themselves, they were obliged to consult the taste 
of a rude and ignorant age. It had further on its side 
the continuous favor of the public. That was even 
less to its credit than the practice of the Elizabethan 
playwrights. So far from being evidence for either 
its correctness or excellence, its popularity aroused 
the suspicion that for that very reason it must be 
both inferior and wrong. That any work meets with 
general approbation has nearly always been proof posi- 
tive to the superior person that it has failed to come up 
anywhere near to his own exalted standard. This atti- 
tude, taken from time immemorial towards all kinds of 
literature, was the one regularly assumed towards tragi- 
comedy. Unnatural inventions of this sort, it was said, 
might please the groundlings. The judicious would 
be only grieved or offended. He who thus sought to 
gain the applause of the ignorant must be content to 
dispense with the approval of the wise. 

Again, tragi-comedy could boast on its side the 
authority of some men of letters. Even after the 

134 



INTERMINGLING OF COMIC AND TRAGIC 

Restoration it had had its advocates. Among them 
too could be reckoned the great name of Dryden. 
In his 'Essay of Dramatic Poesy,' published in 1668, 
he gave the views of both sides. One of the inter- 
locutors in the dialogue, Lisideius — by whom is usu- 
ally supposed to be meant Sir Charles Sedley — roundly 
denounced tragi-comedy. No theatre in tlie world save 
the English had anything so absurd. " 'T is a drama 
of our own invention," he is represented as saying, 
" and the fashion enough to proclaim it so : here a 
course of mirth, there another of sadness and passion, 
and a third of honor and a duel ; thus in two hours 
and a half we run through all the fits of Bedlam." 
When it comes to the turn of Neander — that is, Dry- 
den — to speak, he maintains the propriety and excel- 
lence of this kind of composition. He denies that pity 
and mirth in the same piece destroy each other. As 
a matter of fact, in life as well as logic, contrarieties, 
when placed near, set each other off. It was to the 
honor of the English stage, he concluded, that it had 
invented, increased, and perfected a more pleasant way 
of writing than was ever known to the ancients or 
moderns of any nation. 

But this defence of tragi-comedy availed little or 
nothing. No authority, however eminent, it was held 
could oversway the established principles of criticism 
which had set down this method of composition as 
monstrous. As in the case of the unities, the argu- 
ments denouncing their violation met for a long time 
with general critical assent, so it was with the pro- 
scription of the pathetic and the humorous in the 

135 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

same production. "There is no place in tragedy," 
wrote Gildon, "for anything but grave and serious 
actions." ^ Tragi-comedy fell completely under the 
ban of those who posed as the champions of true taste. 
The practice of writing it did not indeed die out; nor 
did the plays of that character produced fail of suc- 
cess. But however popular tragi-comedy might be 
with the public, it met with scant favor from the pro- 
fessed leaders of public opinion. It was the fashion 
to decry it as the ridiculous invention of an unpolished 
age. It was after this very manner that Addison 
spoke of it in one of his essays. In so doing he re- 
echoed the words put by Dryden into the mouth of 
Sedley. He described it as a production of purely 
native growth. The invention, however, so far from 
redounding to the honor of the English stage, was 
one of the most monstrous that had ever entered a 
poet's thoughts. "But the absurdity of the perform- 
ance," he added complacently, " is so very visible 
that I shall not insist upon it." ^ From these last 
words it is clear that Addison was expressing the ac- 
cepted view that had then come to be entertained by 
the men of the class to which he belonged. 

Tragi-comedy, accordingly, though much liked by the 
public, met with scant favor from the professional 
critics. Even Dryden spoke of it at times disparag- 
ingly, and that, too, at the very moment he was ex- 
emplifying it in his practice. Certainly few there 

1 Essay on the Art, Rise, and Progress of the Stage (1710), in edition 
of Shakespeare, 1728, vol. x. p. 16. 

2 Spectator, No. 40, April 16, 1711. 

136 



INTERMINGLING OF COMIC AND TRAGIC 

were to put in any plea in its defence. Dryden's 
brother-in-law, Sir Robert Howard, who openly pro- 
fessed disbelief in the unities, found, though with 
some reluctance, that tragi-comedy was too much for 
him to approve.^ Dennis, who under ordinary cir- 
cumstances would far rather have died than fail to 
advocate the unpopular side of any subject, had noth- 
ing to offer in its favor. He commented, indeed, in 
no very amiable terms upon some of the statements 
made by Addison in the essay just mentioned. That 
writer was declared to be vilely mistaken if he fancied 
tragi-comedy was an outgrowth of the English theatre.^ 
In this Dennis had been anticipated by Gildon, who 
about two 5rears before had argued at great length 
against Dryden's defence of this " unnatural mixture," 
as he termed it, and had asserted that it belonged 
to the earlier and ruder period of both the Greek 
and the Latin drama, instead of being a modern in- 
vention.^ But while Dennis himself did not denounce 
this species of dramatic composition, he made no at- 
tempt to justify it. There was indeed no one — at least 
no one of eminence — to say a good word for it until 
Dr. Johnson came forward to plead its cause. In the 
very same number of ' The Rambler,' in which he 
questioned the propriety of the unities, he professed 
himself inclined to believe that he who regarded no 
other laws than those of nature would take under 
his protection tragi-comedy. One of his sentences is 

1 Preface to Four New Plays, 1665. 

2 Essay on the Genius and "Writings of Shakespeare (1712), p. 48. 

8 Kemarks on the Plays of Shakespeare (1710), in Works, ed. 1728, 
vol. X. p. 426. 

137 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

somewhat ambiguous ; the end apparently contradicts 
the beginning. Tragi-comedy, he said, " however gen- 
erally condemned, her own laurels have hitherto shaded 
from the fulminations of criticism." ^ His defence of 
this mode of composition he made still stronger in the 
preface to his edition of Shakespeare. 

The account, which has here been given of the views 
of the eighteenth century, has so far gone upon the 
supposition that the men of that time attached to 
tragi-comedy precisely the same sense in which we 
ordinarily understand the word to-day. But this was not 
always the case. The critical estimate of that period 
is in consequence subject to an important modification. 
With us the term designates a play partaking of the 
characteristics of both comedy and tragedy, but having 
regularly a fortunate ending. Such was its use among 
the Elizabethans. So long as the final event of these 
two kinds of composition was kept perfectly distinct, 
so long as tragedy implied a tragic conclusion and 
comedy a happy one, the present sense is the only one 
in which the word could be properly employed. But 
after the Restoration this demarcation did not continue 
to exist. It was no longer essential that tragedy should 
have a tragic ending. Provided there had been a 
sufficient amount of misery in the course of the play, 
or provided that a reasonable number of the wicked 
characters had been done to death, the virtuous hero 
and heroine might be permitted to emerge from their 
troubles unscathed. This method of representing the 
result had in its favor the occasional support of an- 

1 No. 156, Sept. 14, 1751. 
138 



INTERMINGLING OF COMIC AND TRAGIC 

tiqiiity. The ' Electra ' of Sophocles, the ' Iphigenia in 
Tauris ' of Euripides, to select two examples, had each 
an ending, if not positively happy, at least satisfactory 
to the feelings. A similar treatment of the tragic 
theme developed itself upon the English stage. Tate's 
adaptation of ' Lear ' is a noted case in point. It con- 
tinued to be called a tragedy, though Cordelia came 
out triumphant, and saw her father privileged to re- 
ascend his throne. In the eighteenth centmy the term 
seems occasionally to have been applied to dramas hardly 
tragic at all, for no other reason apparently than that 
they were written in blank verse. ^ 

The breaking down of this demarcation, however, was 
looked upon with little favor by many of the stricter 
sort ; and controversy about its correctness lasted as late 
at least as the middle of the eighteenth century. But 
one consequence of it was the extension of the mean- 
ing of the term tragi-comedy. It came to be applied 
to dramas which had the most painful of catastrophes, 
provided they admitted anywhere humorous scenes. It 
was further applied to plays in which the comic ele- 
ment was almost wholly independent of the tragic. It 
was thus defined by Colman in the advertisement pre- 
fixed to his alteration of 'Philaster.' The term in 
question, he said, " according to its present acceptation 
conveys the idea of ... a play, like ' The Spanish Friar ' 
or ' Oronooko,' in which two distinct actions, one serious 
and the other comic, are unnaturally woven together." 
In the other and more limited sense it is, however, often 
employed. Consequently, when the eighteenth-century 

1 See, for illustration, Francis's ' Eugenia,' 1752. 
139 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

critics speak of tragi-comedy, it is frequently and per- 
haps usually the introduction of humorous scenes into 
tragedy proper which they have in mind. This was in 
their eyes the grossest possible violation of decorum. 
The feeling that would banish what was painful from 
comedy could never be compared in intensity with that 
which shuddered at the introduction of comic passages 
into tragedy. Language at times seemed utterly in- 
adequate to paint the absurdity, the grossness, and the 
barbarism of such a procedure. 

The course was particularly objectionable because 
it conflicted with all the then established principles 
of dramatic art. These, it was felt, had come to be 
definitely settled for all time. Especially was it ob- 
jectionable when the catastrophe of the piece was 
painful. In that case there was no room for any- 
thing which could be suspected of being even re- 
motely jocular. Tragedy was to be throughout in a 
state of grief or terror. It was not really tragedy 
when there was any attempt put forth to lighten the 
generally pervasive atmosphere of funereal gloom. It 
must always be on the point of bursting into fits of 
tears or fits of rage. Anything that violently conflicted 
with these two engrossing occupations was regarded as 
detracting from its dignity. The monotony of wretch- 
edness was never to be disturbed by anything which 
savored of the humorous, especially by that form of 
it which was called low. If any one resorted to such 
methods, and his venture was received with pleasure 
by crowded audiences, the professional reviewers took 
care to dispel any self-complacency in which the author 

140 



INTERMINGLING OF COMIC AND TRAGIC 

might be disposed to indulge as a consequence, by as- 
suring him that his work, however favorably regarded 
by the public, could not be expected to sustain success- 
fully the ordeal of criticism. Shakespeare, in spite of 
the veneration in which he was held, had constantly 
to undergo castigation for the offences of this sort he 
had committed. Complaint was loudly expressed of 
the low nonsense, the misplaced buffoonery with which, 
in defiance of every principle of decorum, he had suf- 
fered even his best pieces to be disgraced. 

These last words — which are taken almost literally 
from a periodical of the latter part of the eighteenth 
century ^ — are given merely as an illustration of the 
attitude assumed towards Shakespeare by those who 
regarded themselves as responsible for the preserva- 
tion of pure and refined taste. Remarks of this regula- 
tion pattern can be found repeated again and again 
with positiveness in essays, in magazines, in reviews, in 
pamphlets of various kinds. The grave-diggers' scene 
in ' Hamlet ' came to be, in particular, the subject of 
attack. From it critics, even when otherwise favor- 
able, turned away with averted eyes. The most fervent 
admirer of the great dramatist felt it incumbent to 
exhibit the impartiality of his judgment by falling foul 
of so manifest a violation of propriety. The anony- 
mous author of ' Observations on the Tragedy of 
Hamlet, ' which appeared about the middle of the eigh- 
teenth century, gave vent to sentiments which were so 
commonly expressed that they are worth quoting as 
representative of widely prevalent feelings in the class 

1 European Magazine, December, 1785, vol. viii. p. 417. 
141 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

wliich assumed to itself the character of being specially 
cultured. After the usual lamentations about Shake- 
speare's disregard of the unities, after the usual remarks 
that if he had only known the rules he would have 
risen to still nobler and sublimer heights than he actu- 
ally attained, the writer let fall the full fury of his 
indignation upon the introduction of the grave-diggers. 
"Though this scene," he said, "is full of humor, and 
had not been amiss in low comedy, it has not the least 
business here. To debase his sublime compositions with 
wretched farce, commonplace jokes, and unmeaning 
quibbles, seems to have been the delight of the laurelled, 
the immortal Shakespeare. Some of his foolish bigoted 
admirers have endeavored to excuse him by saying that 
it was more the fault of the age than his, that the taste 
of the people was to the highest degree vicious when 
he wrote, that they had been used to buffoonery and 
would not be pleased without it, and that he was 
obliged to comply with the prevailing taste for his own 
emolument. This, instead of excusing, aggravates his 
crime. He was conscious he acted wrong, but meanly 
chose to sacrifice his sense and judgment to delight an 
injudicious audience and gain the applause of a herd 
of fools, rather than approach too near to purity and 
perfection. To mix comedy with tragedy is breaking 
through the sacred laws of nature, nor can it be de- 
fended." Those familiar with the writings of Voltaire 
will recognize at once how exactly these words reflect 
his opinions. The reference to the female sex with 
which the passage concludes bears, however, the un- 
mistakable mark of the native soil. " This incoherent 

142 



INTERMINGLING OF COMIC AND TRAGIC 

absurdity," adds the writer, "will forever remain an 
indelible blot in the character of our poet; and warn us 
no more to expect perfection in the work of a mortal 
than sincerity in the breast of a female."^ 

Fortunately for his peace during life, fortunately for 
his reputation after death, the writer of this little work 
remained anonymous. But to the list of undistin- 
guished and indistinguishable mediocrities who found 
fault with this species of composition, can be added the 
great name of Milton. In the preface to his ' Samson 
Agonistes, ' published in 1671, he spoke of the small 
esteem, or rather infamy, in which, according to him, 
tragedy was held in his day. It had all come about, 
he asserted, "through the poet's error of intermixing 
comic stuff with tragic sadness ; or introducing trivial 
and vulgar persons: which by all judicious hath been 
counted absurd, and brought in without discretion, cor- 
ruptly to gratify the people." This was the opinion 
of the man who looked at the drama from the point of 
view of classical antiquity. The French critics carried 
still further the stern repression of the comic element in 
tragedy. They found fault, indeed, with the ancients 
themselves for their deviations from this assumed 
standard of perfect propriety. The frivolous conversa- 
tion, for instance, introduced by Euripides into his 
' Alcestis ' met with condemnation. If such could be 
their attitude towards a great writer of antiquity, it 
was inevitable that no mere modern like Shakespeare 
could escape the lash. His works were hardly brought 
to their notice till a third of the eighteenth century had 

1 Miscellaneous Observations, etc., p. 46, 1762. 
143 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

gone. From that time on there was an almost unvary- 
ing uniformity of censure bestowed upon him for his 
mixture of comic and tragic scenes in the same produc- 
tion. This in turn affected English critical opinion, 
which in dramatic matters was then largely a mere echo 
of the French. It was rarely the case that Shake- 
speare's professed admirers attempted to defend his 
course in this particular. When Walpole did so in the 
preface to the second edition of his ' Castle of Otranto,' 
he was sneered at by the critics who were in good and 
regular standing. The ones favorably disposed towards 
the dramatist constantly shifted the burden of respon- 
sibility for his conceded excesses and absurdities from 
his shoulders to those of his age. 

Nor was this all. Milton, in the passage just quoted, 
had done more than condemn the intermingling of the 
serious and the humorous in the same piece. His 
censure had further fallen upon the introduction into 
tragedy of low and trivial persons. One was not exactly 
a consequent of the other; but it was reasonably sure 
to be its accompaniment. Here was a peculiar aggra- 
vation of the original offence. A practice of this sort 
was contrary to all classical precedent; nor had it any 
support from the moderns who had followed classical 
models. At times exception had been taken to Ben 
Jonson's course in introducing into his two tragedies 
scenes below the dignity of tragedy. In ' Sejanus ' Livia 
and her physician satirize artificial helps to beauty. 
In ' Catiline ' there is a parliament of women. But in 
neither case do those who take part in the dialogue 
belong to a low class. This hostility to the introduc- 

144 



INTERMINGLING OF COMIC AND TRAGIC 

tion of men of an inferior social grade was based upon 
the generally accepted doctrine that tragedy must never 
deal with persons who belong to common life. If 
otherwise, it could not properly bear Milton's epithet 
of gorgeous. Its characters must hold the sceptre and 
wear the pall. Any treatment of the theme that did 
not conform essentially to this practice showed by that 
very fact that it was deficient in art. There is a good 
deal to be said in justification of the wide prevalence of 
such a view when two authors, so great in genius and 
so unlike in nature as Voltaire and Milton, agreed in 
maintaining it. Under such circumstances the ordi- 
nary man may be pardoned for believing that it must 
be true. 

The belief in the necessity of preserving unimpaired 
the dignity of tragedy by excluding from it all men of 
the baser sort prevailed generally in the critical litera- 
ture of the eighteenth century. To no small extent it 
was affected by political considerations, especially by 
the feeling entertained for the ruler. Even less on 
the stage than in the court itself was there to be any 
tampering with the dignity of so divinely an accredited 
being. The moment a king appeared he must discover 
himself in every word and sentence. Both thought 
and language were to be in accordance with his high 
position. Voltaire insisted that not only nothing com- 
mon must be said by him, but nothing common could 
be said before him. This was not merely in the play 
itself, but in its representation in his presence. The 
phrase, "not a mouse stirring," in the opening of ' Ham- 
let, ' he asserted, might do for a guard-house ; " but not 
10 145 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

upon the stage, before the first persons of a nation, who 
express themselves nobly, and before whom men must 
express themselves in the same way." The French 
idea of the conduct of a tragedy seems, then, to have 
much resembled the conception which children have of 
the behavior of a king. In the eyes of these he always 
goes about with a crown upon his head. That he can 
act like other men, can share both their feelings and 
their failings, can enjoy the same pleasures and suffer 
the same pains seemed never to enter their minds. The 
French extended even to themselves the deference that 
was to be paid to their rulers. On their own account, 
as well as the king's, they objected to the introduction 
of inferior persons upon the stage. Like Hotspur's 
lord, they wished no rude, unmannerly knaves to come 
between the wind and their nobility. 

Far otherwise had been the practice of Shakespeare. 
By him all these conventions so cherished by the classi- 
cists had been systematically violated. On his crowded 
stage men of all sorts and conditions of life appear. 
They talk to each other in the chamber, they jostle one 
another in the street. What was perhaps even worse 
was the introduction of the professional fools, holding 
conversation with the graver personages of the play, 
especially with the monarch. Such a course was against 
all classical precedent. It was one of the points of 
extremest divergence between the English and French 
theatres. Upon the latter, characters belonging to 
low life would never have been permitted by the audi- 
ence to play their parts, had the author been audacious 
enough to introduce them. But to introduce them the 

146 



INTERMINGLING OF COMIC AND TRAGIC 

author had no disposition. Voltaire tells us, in the 
preface to his tragedy of Rome Sauvee, that he was 
particular not to bring upon the stage the deputies of 
the AUobroges. It was their station in life that kept 
them from appearing before the cultivated audience to 
which his play was addressed. They were not really 
ambassadors of the Gauls, he tells us. In that case 
their presence would not have disgraced the distin- 
guished assemblage before which they were to act. 
But, as a matter of fact, they were the agents of a 
petty Italian province, who were nothing but low in- 
formers, and therefore not proper persons to appear in 
company with Cicero, Caesar, and Cato. As might be 
expected from a man holding such views, Shakespeare's 
course offered a favorite subject of criticism. He 
attaclied the opening scene in ' Julius Caesar, ' where 
the lowest class of the populace are represented as ex- 
changing speeches with the tribunes. It was not the 
character of the conversation that called forth his 
special censure. It was not because it abounded in 
dreadful quibbles and plays upon words — and in the 
wretchedness of this wretched practice, it must be ad- 
mitted, Shakespeare surpassed all his contemporaries. 
But while these things aggravated the offence, they did 
not constitute it. That consisted in there being any 
conversation at all. 

In all the numerous and varied censures which the 
professed guardians of taste passed upon the drama- 
tist for his assumed violations of decorum, it never 
seemed to occur to any one of them that, from 
the point of view of dramatic art itself, he, the great 

147 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

master, might be right, and they, the critics, might be 
wrong. Being a man, he was liable in matters of detail 
to fall into error through haste, or carelessness, or even 
mistaken judgment. But being a man of genius, was 
he likely to err in the broad general methods which he 
had followed ? A possibility that he knew much more 
than his censurers was never taken into consideration. 
His incorrectness was assumed as a matter of course. 
The only thing left was to explain how it came about. 
His severer critics did not impute his intermixture of 
tragic and comic scenes to ignorance. It was all owing, 
in their opinion, to his villanous taste. In this belief 
as to its origin they may be conceded to be right, 
even if we dispute the justice of the adjective applied 
to the noun. It would, indeed, be preposterous to take 
the ground that Shakespeare was not familiar with 
views which his practice shows that he did not accept. 
His remarks in ' Hamlet ' upon the many sorts of dra- 
matic writing in vogue show that he knew perfectly 
well what he was doing. The course which he adopted 
was, without doubt, the course that had been common 
with his predecessors and was common with his con- 
temporaries. But there is not the slightest reason to 
suppose that he followed it ignorantly or unadvisedly. 

He had had, indeed, ample opportunity to learn the 
opinions of the school whose precepts he did not regard. 
There had been a number of plays written in accord- 
ance with its canons. They exist still, and are occa- 
sionally read, though read only by the painful student 
of the drama. There had also been a number of critical 
prophets going before him to point out the error of the 

148 



INTERMINGLING OF COMIC AND TRAGIC 

ways into which the earlier playwrights had fallen. 
The same authorities, to say nothing of others, who 
had come forward to instruct an unsesthetic generation 
in the nature of the crime involved in the violation of 
the unities, had also left their warnings as to the grave 
impropriety of mingling comic matter with tragic. 
"Many times, to make mirth," says Whetstone in his 
comments on his contemporaries, "they make a clown 
companion with a king. In their grave counsels they 
allow the advice of fools: yea, they use one order of 
speech for all persons : — a gross indecorum, for a crow 
will ill counterfeit the nightingale's sweet voice." To 
the same effect spoke Sidney in his ' Apology for 
Poetry. ' He declared that the plays of his time were 
neither right tragedies nor right comedies. They min- 
gle kings and clowns, he continued, "not because the 
matter so carrieth it ; but thrust in clowns by head and 
shoulders to play a part in majestical matters with 
neither decency nor discretion. So as neither the ad- 
miration and commiseration, nor the right sportfulness 
is by their mongrel tragi-comedy obtained." 

It is not unlikely that many, and perhaps the large 
majority of the plays of that earliest period, had they 
been preserved, would have been recognized by us as 
justly falling under Sidney's censure, when he declared 
that while no sort of poetry was so much used in the 
England of his time as the dramatic, none was more 
plentifully abused. But the abuse was not, as he sup- 
posed, in the method followed, but in the execution. 
It was Shakespeare's triumph to prove by his practice 
that the method was conformable both to nature and 

149 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

the highest art. Kings and the professional fools of 
the household conversed together in real life. What 
inherent objection existed to their doing so in the drama 
which is supposed to represent real life ? It was never 
their introduction into the same scene that merited 
censure. It was the way they conducted themselves 
after being brought together that would enhance or 
injure the effect of the play. It is one of Shakespeare's 
crowning distinctions that he recognized the possibil- 
ities that lay in the contrast of these opposed char- 
acters. He saw that it furnished opportunities for 
effective representation which did not and could not 
exist under the rigid rules of the classicists. Espe- 
cially was he quick to seize upon the chances which the 
introduction of the household jester presented, to make 
acute and daring remarks on human life and motives 
that could not safely be put in the mouths of more seri- 
ous characters ; for it is the all-licensed fool that utters 
what other people think but are afraid to say. 

What, indeed, is the objection to this mixture of the 
serious and the comic in the same play? By it is cer- 
tainly represented, as it is not in pure comedy or pure 
tragedy, the life we actually live and the mingled ele- 
ments that compose it. None of us exist in a state of 
perpetual joy or of perpetual gloom. We can go even 
farther. In the most tragical events there is usually 
somewhere an element of the humorous. In the most 
cheerful passages of life there always looms up before 
our eyes the suggestion, if not the reality, of sorrow. 
There is no one to whom existence is purely a pleasure. 
Those of us who have no great misfortunes to contend 

150 



INTERMINGLING OF COMIC AND TRAGIC 

with, usually succeed in getting an adequate share of 
misery out of the little ones that fall to our lot. The 
lives of the happiest of us all are really tragi-comedies. 
In them painful episodes occur. They abound in events 
that wear upon the feelings, even if we are enabled to 
escape from calamities which sadden the heart, though 
they may not break the spirit. A single incident, or a 
series of closely connected incidents, may belong to the 
realm of comedy or of tragedy pure and simple. It is 
right enough to make matters of this kind the subject 
of a play. It is right enough to make the play in 
accordance therewith serious or humorous throughout. 
It would be, however, a most unjustifiable restraint 
upon the liberty of the dramatist to limit him either to 
incidents of this nature or to this method of treating 
them. 

Yet this was something that was constantly at- 
tempted. A spurious reason, as we have seen, had 
been given for the maintenance of the unities. The 
spectator, we were told, suffered pain, or ought to have 
suffered pain, if they were violated. In being trans- 
ported from place to place his ideas were confounded 
and his sensations dissipated. A line of reasoning, not 
essentially different, was adopted in regard to the mix- 
ture of serious and humorous scenes in the same play. 
As there was no question that sadness and mirth were 
constantly intermixed in real life, it was impossible to 
maintain that the illegitimacy of this form of dramatic 
composition was due to its improbability. Another 
sort of ground — already indicated in Dryden's essay 
— was taken. The two impressions were said to coun- 

151 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

teract each other. Their incompatibility destroyed the 
effect of the play when they were introduced together. 
This assumption, like many of the conventional assump- 
tions of the classicists, was based upon the fallacy that 
the spectator feels the same degree of sorrow or joy 
that the characters in the play are represented as expe- 
riencing. No one seemed to think it worth while to 
controvert it; accordingly it turned up with invariable 
regularity in the criticism of the eighteenth century. 
Towards its close it was formulated and stated in full- 
est terms by Richardson, who was professor of humanity 
in the university of Glasgow. 

Richardson was among the first, if he was not the 
very first, to enter upon the cultivation of a field which 
has since been worked almost beyond the capacity of 
production. This is the analysis of characters in Shake- 
speare's plays. Several of them were subjected by him 
to examination in two treatises which appeared, respec- 
tively, in 1774 and 1783. Both of these were creditable 
pieces of work. The style, to be sure, was somewhat 
labored and heavy ; and an overpowering desire to scatter 
moral reflections on every imaginable pretext was not 
calculated to add to the charm of the matter. Still the 
author was a sincere and ardent admirer of Shakespeare. 
That, however, did not prevent him from contributing 
to his second treatise a short essay upon the faults of the 
dramatist. The criticism contained in it was very old 
and very shallow ; nor was its ineffectiveness made any 
the less ineffective because clothed in pompous phrase- 
ology. According to Richardson, Shakespeare had been 
perverted by the dogma that the dramatist must follow 

152 



INTERMINGLING OF COMIC AND TRAGIC 

nature; for while he possessed consummate poetical 
genius, he lacked philosophical discernment. In con- 
sequence, he had been misled by this belief into that 
practice of introducing comic scenes into his tragedy 
which so frequently disgusts. True, the passages of 
this sort to which exception had been taken were 
natural. But all things that are natural should not be 
represented. At this point was deployed the well-worn 
assumption which had been called upon to perform its 
part on so many previous critical battle-fields. We are 
once more told that the dissonant emotions produced 
by the tragic and the comic destroy one another, and the 
mind, during the contest, is left in a state of distraction. 
The repute of tragi-comedy undoubtedly suffered 
from the presence of comic scenes which had no genu- 
ine connection with the play, and were brought in for 
no other purpose than to please the meanest class of the 
populace. An unsatisfactory effect can be and has been 
produced by such a course. It is the fault, for illus- 
tration, of ' Don Sebastian, ' regarded by some as the 
best of Dryden's plays. It is even more in evidence 
in his last tragedy, ' Cleomenes, ' where he avowedly 
admitted that he had introduced a low scene, not to 
help forward the action, but merely to gratify the rabble. 
Such a discreditable result is therefore liable to follow 
the concession of this privilege to the dramatist. But 
while it is possible, it is not in the least inevitable. 
In every instance, therefore, the particular work under 
consideration must be judged on its individual merits. 
If the comic scenes do not serve to advance the busi- 
ness of the play, or to heighten the effect of the tragic 

153 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

element, then their insertion is both an impertinence 
and an injury. It is exactly of the same character as 
the actor's wit extemporized in order to make laugh a 
quantity of barren spectators. That there is constant 
danger of the abuse of this privilege of introducing the 
comic may be conceded. That Shakespeare himself 
appreciated the peril is plain from the indignant com- 
ment made by him upon the pitiful ambition of those 
who take the part of the fool, and the stern direction 
Hamlet gives the players that the clowns shall speak no 
more than is set down for them. But while he recog- 
nized this risk, he recognized equally well the impor- 
tance of the element of the humorous in relieving the 
strain upon the feelings of too prolonged consideration 
of the serious, as well as its adding by contrast to the 
effect of the serious. He knew better than did his 
critics how close life's tragedy stands to its comedy. It 
was a higher art than that of the schools which brought 
to our ears the conversation of the grave-diggers, and 
set before our eyes the ghastly preparations for burial. 
The stolid indifference of the world to private sorrow 
is a lesson that time brings home to us all ; but nowhere 
has it been more strikingly conveyed than in the care- 
less unconcern and trivial talk of the clowns to whom 
has been intrusted the charge of preparing the last 
resting-place of the hapless girl, who without fault of 
her own and without warning has been struck down, in 
the pride of youth, from love and happiness and high 
station into madness and doubtful death. 

Exactly the same mingling of the comic and the 
tragic can be frequently observed in the art nearest 

154 



INTERMINGLING OF COMIC AND TRAGIC 

allied to the actor's, — that of the orator. In the very 
highest efforts of the latter, the humorous, the pathetic, 
and the sublime are often found in close juxtaposition. 
They follow one another at the briefest of intervals. 
For all that, no sense of incongruity jars upon our feel- 
ings, no inappropriateness strikes us. We do not find 
ourselves hindered from undergoing the keenest sensa- 
tions of sorrow, pity, or wrath, or of mental or spiritual 
elevation, because a short time before we have been 
stirred to heartiest laughter. The springs of joy and 
grief lie side by side; and it is in the power of the 
great orator to cause each to burst forth at pleasure. 
He is at liberty to confine himself to but one of many 
methods of appeal. He can be serious throughout, he 
can be humorous throughout, or he can intermingle the 
serious and the humorous. It is by the effect he pro- 
duces, not by the manner in which it is produced, that 
the excellence of his course is to be tested. If he suc- 
ceeds through the agency of the one or the other exclu- 
sively, no fault can be found with him for so limiting 
himself. But equally is it true that no fault can be 
found with him if he chooses to call into action both 
classes of emotions. All that is required of him is that 
what he does must conduce properly to the end he has 
in view. This freedom conceded on all sides to the ora- 
tor belongs by right to the dramatist also. By Shake- 
speare it was assumed without hesitation and without 
apology. 

From this bondage of the so-called proprieties, as 
from that of the unities, has the mighty dramatist 
delivered us. The comedies and tragedies which the 

155 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

classicists maintained to be the only ones that could be 
correct, if they hold the mirror up to nature at all, hold 
it up to a very limited aspect of nature, or to an aspect 
existing for a very limited period. It can be great 
work in its domain, but its domain is restricted. It is 
the enlarged power which Shakespeare gave to dramatic 
representation, it is his skill in raising it above the 
restraint of mechanical rules, and embracing in its 
vision the whole field of human life, which place him in 
some respects in a higher position than even that which 
the greatest of his classical predecessors, cramped by 
the condition of their theatre, were able to attain. The 
ignorance which once decried his methods is now little 
heard; or, if heard, not heeded. Against the doc- 
trine of the unities there had been, during the course of 
the eighteenth century, a good deal of critical protest. 
But the impropriety of mingling the comic and the 
tragic in the same piece was conceded on every side. 
Johnson's was almost the solitary voice raised in its 
favor; for Walpole's defence of the practice, though 
containing suggestive observations, is rather an expres- 
sion of personal opinion than an argument. The estab- 
lished custom was either to inveigh furiously against it 
or to deprecate it mildly ; but in either case to regard 
it as an indefensible violation of propriety. 

What indeed may be considered the official critical 
view of the eighteenth century on this point was indi- 
cated by the somewhat heavy-headed Lord Lyttelton, 
who brought out his ' Dialogues of the Dead ' about the 
same time that Johnson and Walpole were putting their 
opinions upon record. One of these dialogues is rep- 

156 



INTERMINGLING OF COMIC AND TRAGIC 

resented as taking place between Pope and Boileau. 
Shakespeare is the main subject of discussion. Lyttel- 
ton was unconsciously true to nature in representing 
the French critic as possessing and expressing very 
positive opinions as to the merits of the English author, 
though he had never read and could not have read a 
line of his works. Pope makes the usual apologies of his 
century for the conduct of the dramatist. " The strange 
mixture of tragedy, comedy and farce in the same play, 
nay sometimes in the same scene," he is reported as say- 
ing, " I acknowledge to be quite inexcusable. But this 
was the taste of the time when Shakespeare wrote." 
Naturally the purified taste which had come to prevail 
could not tolerate such impropriety. Here, as else- 
where, critical opinion was far behind popular opinion. 
Long after Johnson had raised the standard of revolt, 
the former continued to exhibit unflinching firmness in 
denouncing the mixture of the serious and the humor- 
ous. The reviewers, connected with the periodical 
press, kept as sharp an eye out for this violation of 
decorum as they did for the disregard of the unities. 
Cumberland, for instance, produced in 1783 his tragedy 
of ' The Mysterious Husband. ' In it he ran counter 
to several well-established conventions. The one, how- 
ever, for which he was taken sharply to task, was the 
appearance in his piece of a comic character. This 
was a sacrifice, he was told, that the earlier drama- 
tists had been compelled to make to the unpolished 
taste of their times. But the cause no longer existed. 
There was, accordingly, no excuse for having intro- 
duced humor where all should be passion. By so doing 

157 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

he had arrested the impressions of pity and terror, in 
order to excite laughter, preferring the approbation of 
the ignorant to the feelings of the judicious. ^ 

This was the established critical view. Men like 
Congreve, Addison, Young, Thomson, and many other's 
strove to live up to it; but a large number were in- 
different. Relying upon Shakespeare's authority, they 
went to lengths which Shakespeare himself would never 
have sanctioned. They, in turn, if their works chanced 
to be popular, were subjected to censure, and in occa- 
sional instances, to the correction implied in alteration. 
Southerne's ' Oronooko ' was frequently attacked, not 
for the immorality of its comic scenes, but for its hav- 
ing any comic scenes at all. Originally produced in 
1696, it remained during the following century a favor- 
ite of the theatre-going public. But its mixture of the 
humorous and the pathetic always offended the advo- 
cates of art, and in 1759 Hawkesworth undertook to 
alter it for the stage in such a way as to remove the 
reproach. The prologue to this revised version, after 
praising the author for the tragic portion of his play, 
went on to add : — 

" Yet, slave to custom in a laughing age, 
With ribald mirth he stained the sacred page ; 
While virtue's shrine he reared, taught vice to mock, 
And joined, in sport, the buskin and the sock : 
O ! haste to part them ! — burst the opprobrious band I 
Thus Art and Nature with one voice demand." 

Nothing indeed shows how much more influential 
was the popular to what may be called the professional 

^ Critical Review, vol. Iv. p. 151. 
158 



INTERMINGLING OF COMIC AND TRAGIC 

taste than the fact that from the earliest days of the 
Restoration period the author, when he set out to write 
for the stage, was very apt to cast aside the accepted 
critical view, sometimes even when enunciated by him- 
self, and conform to practices which either his age or 
he himself condemned. Into the alteration which he 
made of Shakespeare's 'Richard II,' Tate introduced 
comedy, for the avowed reason that he judged it neces- 
sary so to do, in order " to help off the heaviness of 
the tale." For that he hoped not only for pardon but 
for approbation; and further supported his action by 
the authority of Dryden, who had declared that few 
tragedies in that age would succeed, unless " lightened 
with a course of mirth." ^ But the dereliction of Den- 
nis from the right was far worse. He had found great 
fault with Shakespeare for bringing into the play of 
' Coriolanus ' the dregs of the populace, and for turning 
Menenius, as he said, into an errant buffoon, — something 
which Shakespeare was very far from doing. By this 
course the dramatist had offended against the dignity 
of tragedy. Yet in his alteration of the play Dennis 
added a good deal of low comedy of his own. It was 
avowedly done for no other purpose than to please the 
audience. " I desire you," he wrote, " to look upon it as 
a voluntary fault and as a trespass against conviction." ^ 
But however much they have failed when they came 
to the trial themselves, the critics always held up be- 
fore others the orthodox view. During the eighteenth 
century they practically had it all their own way. The 

1 Epistle Dedicatory to the Spanish Friar. 

2 Essay on the Genius and Tragedy of Shakespeare, p. 35. 

159 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

correctness of their theory was hardly questioned pub- 
licly, however much it might be disparaged privately, 
or however frequently it might be disregarded in prac- 
tice. Belief in the impropriety of introducing the 
humorous into tragedy, like the belief in witchcraft, 
was never out-argued; it was simply outgrown. A 
change in the attitude of the human mind on this 
point took place during the century, apparently with- 
out any appeal to the reason. It was outgrown, be- 
cause the practice of Shakespeare prevailed by the 
mere weight of his example. Here, as in other ways, 
he has been his own best advocate. The steadily in- 
creasing appreciation of his superiority, not simply as 
a poet but as a dramatic artist, is observable in the 
steadily increasing tendency that went on during the 
eighteenth century to reject the alterations which had 
been made in his plays by so-called improvers, and to 
return to the form in which they had been originally 
written. Attempts to foist new alterations upon the 
poet had not ceased, indeed, even when the century was 
nearing its close. But they were no longer carried out 
on an extensive scale. They were no longer under- 
taken with the light heart and easy confidence, which 
had once prevailed, that the botcher must necessarily be 
an improver. Above all, they were no longer received 
with favor, as their perpetrators were speedily given 
to understand. 

Yet in this general stream of tendency there occurred 
one remarkable eddy. In another chapter it will be 
necessary to give some account of the havoc which 
the devotees of art pure and undefiled wrought with 

160 



INTERMINGLING OF COMIC AND TRAGIC 

the works of the dramatist in order to fit them for the 
understanding ages which had succeeded the barbar- 
ous one in which he flourished. Here, however, is 
a fitting place to relate the story of one of the latest 
and most audacious attempts to reform Shakespeare in 
accordance with the demands of that purified taste 
which could not away with the introduction of hu- 
morous scenes into tragedy. It was made at the time 
when classicism had entered upon its downward career ; 
when the canons of art it was wont to proclaim arro- 
gantly had begun to be questioned by even the intel- 
lectually timid, and to be scouted by bolder spirits. 
It was furthermore made by a very genuine admirer 
of Shakespeare. It was made by liim professedly to 
purify the particular drama selected from the debase- 
ment which its tragic sternness had incurred by the 
introduction of comic scenes. The play operated upon 
was ' Hamlet ; ' the improver was Garrick. The story 
of its alteration is worth recording, not merely because 
it has never been fully told, but because the recep- 
tion accorded to it brings out prominently the difference 
between the point of view of the latter parts of the 
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Nothing shows 
more strikingly the long road which taste and opinion 
had travelled during the hundred and more years which 
had followed the Restoration. 

The liberties which Garrick had previously taken 
with several of Shakespeare's plays had been some- 
what venturesome. But hitherto he had done no more 
than tread in the footsteps of those' who had preceded 
him in the same kind of work, or had tried his hand 
11 161 



^ 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

on pieces which were scarcely known to theatrical 
audiences. But 'Hamlet' was in a different position. 
It had been and was not only exceedingly popular, 
but up to this time it, like 'Othello,' had remained 
untouched by the so-called improver. It came into 
Garrick's mind that here was an opportunity to remedy 
the imperfections under which the play labored in con- 
sequence of its having been produced in an unpolished 
age. We find him actually engaged upon the task of 
altering it in 1771, though we know from his corre- 
spondence that he had contemplated the possibility of 
so doing long before.^ He seems to have communi- 
cated his design to but few. Among them was the 
future commentator, Steevens, already known for his 
interest in and knowledge of Shakespeare. From him 
he received both advice and encouragement. He wrote 
to Garrick that he expected great pleasure from his 
altered ' Hamlet.' That play, in his opinion, was a 
tragi-comedy ; and in spite of all that Dr. Johnson 
had said upon the subject, he should never be recon- 
ciled to tragi-comedy. Shakespeare's genius, he de- 
clared, had deserted him in the last two acts. Still later 
in this same letter he advised Garrick to throw what 
remained of the play after his omissions into a farce, 
to be produced as an after-piece. This was to be en- 
titled ' The Grave-Diggers, with the Pleasant Humors 
of Osrick, the Danish Maccaroni.' " No foreigner," 
he added, "who should happen to be present at the 
exhibition would ever believe it was formed out of 
the lappings and excrescences of the tragedy itself." ^ 
1 Garrick Correspondence, vol. i. p. 515. ^ j^,, p, 451 (1771). 

162 



INTERMINGLING OF COMIC AND TRAGIC 

Steevens, as he showed later, was capable at times 
of expressing literary opinions that are interesting for 
their very absurdity. Still no one ever charged him 
with being a fool. Garrick may be pardoned for be- 
ing misled by his approval. He knew him as the 
patient and untiring student of the Elizabethan drama. 
He could not then know him, as we know him, as 
probably the most unscrupulous as well as one of the 
very ablest scamps among the commentators of Shake- 
speare. There was no happiness dearer to his heart 
than to witness the blunders committed by such as 
had the misfortune to be what he called his friends. 
There are those who believe that in his encourage- 
ment of this alteration Steevens was, for once in his 
life, sincere. There can be little question as to the 
sardonic glee with which he pretended to approve the 
design and watched the progress of the work. His 
suggestion of the after-piece was of course not seri- 
ously given, nor is there any likelihood that it was so 
received. But there was a good deal in what he said 
that ought to have opened Garrick's eyes to the blunder 
he was committing. "I am talking a kind of heresy," 
he wrote, after the disparaging opinion of * Hamlet ' just 
given ; " but I am become less afraid of you, since you 
avowed your present design." ^ 

As the work was never printed, it is impossible to 
tell with certainty either the nature or extent of the 
alterations. Incidental references, not conveying any 
specific information, are made to it in contemporary 
literature ; but there are two short accounts of it, one 

* Garrick Correspondence, vol. i. p. 451. 
163 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

given by a man who had heard, it,^ and another by 
a man who saw or thought he saw the manuscript.^ 
These two, while agreeing in the main, differ occa- 
sionally in details, especially in regard to certain par- 
ticulars of the catastrophe. In spite of these variations 
the following account may be trusted as a fairly correct 
representation, as far as it goes, of the alterations 
introduced. The acts were divided differently, the 
changes were few, and those were generally in the 
form of omission. Garrick himself wrote to Hoadly, 
his clerical friend, that he had added but twenty- 
five lines in all to the whole play.^ But the excisions 
took place on an extensive scale, especially in the last 
part. They were directed mainly to the removal of 
humorous passages. The voyage to England, however, 
was omitted, as was also the execution of Rosencranz 
and Guildenstern, The plot arranged between the 
king and Laertes was also much changed, and the 
character of the latter was thereby made more esti- 
mable. The grave-diggers' scene, that stench in the 
nostrils of the judicious, was swept away entirely. 
Osric also disappeared. Ophelia was deprived of her 
funeral, and passed out of the play with no record 
of the fate that had befallen her. Hamlet was repre- 
sented as bursting in upon the court with the resolution 
to revenge his father. An altercation with the king 
was followed by a duel in which the king was slain. 
The miserable queen did not perish in the sight of 

* Dayies' Dramatic Miscellanies, vol. iii. p. 151. 
2 Boaden's Life of Kerable, vol. i. p. 110. 
' Garrick Correspondence, vol. i. p. 515. 
164 



i 



INTERMINGLING OF COMIC AND TRAGIC 

the audience from the effects of poison, but after the 
killing of her husband r^lshed out of the presence- 
chamber, became frantic and prepared to die in the 
most approved French fashion behind the scenes. 
Hamlet himself, in a duel which took place with 
Laertes, was mortally wounded. Up to this point the 
two accounts agree ; at least they do not conflict. 
But henceforth there is a variation in the details. 
According to the one account Laertes also fell mor- 
tally wounded.1 According to the other — which is, 
on the whole, preferable — Laertes was about to meet 
his death at the hands of Horatio, when the dying 
Hamlet interfered. He joined the hands of the two, 
and commended to their united effort the care of the 
troubled land.^ 

It was probably impossible for Garrick to preserve 
the unities in his altered version. Perhaps no attempt 
was made to do so. Yet the changes introduced seem 
to have had the effect of making their violation com- 
paratively inconspicuous. The worst defiance of them 
in the original was to all appearances eliminated. It 
had grieved mightily the soul of Voltaire that at the 
beginning of the play Fortinbras had been represented 
as setting out with his army for Poland, and at the 
very close as having returned from its conquest. In 
the altered version he plainly did not return, if indeed 
he went forth. In truth, as far as can be collected from 
the conflicting accounts of this revision, the subsidiary 
characters became more subsidiary than ever. In its 
original form ' Hamlet ' is a tragedy in which the actor 

1 By Davies. * By Boaden. 

165 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

who plays the title-role has to divide the honors less 
with subordinate performers than in any other one of 
Shakespeare's greater plays. This is a main reason 
why it is so frequently selected by youthful aspirants 
for histrionic reputation. It furnishes peculiar oppor- 
tunities to the actor who is seeking to gain for himself 
a name. Garrick by his alterations made this char- 
acteristic even more pronounced. One result of this 
procedure — according to his enemies, the object of 
it — was to reduce the consequence of the other parts 
and to increase that of the principal one. On this 
last the omissions tended to concentrate still more the 
attention of the audience. There was a good deal of 
justification for the criticism of the version by Steevens's 
follower, Isaac Reed, that the alterations had been made 
by Garrick in the true spirit of Bottom, who wished to 
play not only the part assigned him but all the rest of 
the piece,^ 

The play thus mutilated was brought out at Drury 
Lane on the eighteenth of December, 1772.^ There 
was evidently anxiety as to the reception it might 
meet. This seems hardly necessary, for Garrick's 
wonderful performance would have been enough to in- 
sure from hostile treatment a play in which he took so 
prominent a part, even if it did not meet with posi- 
tive applause. Still the uneasiness existed. From 
Hoadly he received soon after an inquiry upon this 
very point. " How did the galleries behave," he asked, 
" when they found themselves deprived of their grave- 

1 Biographia Dramatica, under Hamlet, ed. of 1782. 
a Genest'a English Stage, 1660-1830, vol. v. p. 343. 

166 



INTERMINGLING OF COMIC AND TRAGIC 

diggers? Or did they not miss them? That would 
be the greatest applause to your alterations." ^ What- 
ever might be the feelings of the galleries, it was as- 
sumed that the new version would meet with the 
unqualified approval of the boxes, and of the critics 
who stationed themselves in the pit. " The judicious," 
however, had now begun to be a scattered people in 
England. Furthermore they no longer received that 
frank acknowledgment of their superiority which had 
once been conceded to them ungrudgingly. Still the 
small proportion that had survived from the multi- 
tude of former generations were unquestionably pleased. 
One of these, who has left us a record of his sentiments, 
was Edward Taylor. The son of a church dignitary, 
he had spent several years of study and travel abroad, 
and had come back to England in full possession of the 
refined taste of the continent. About a year and a 
half after the production of this altered 'Hamlet' he 
brought out some ' Cursory Remarks,' as he called 
them, on tragedy and on Shakespeare. He hailed the 
abolition of the grave-diggers' scene, so unworthy of 
the dramatist, as evidence of the approaching triumph 
of taste. " To the credit of the present times, indeed," 
he wrote, "these puerilities are now omitted. Let us 
hope that they will not be the only ones, nor let us 
be afraid to reject what our ancestors, in conformity 
to the grosser notions then prevalent, beheld with pleas- 
ure and applause." ^ 

1 Garrick Correspondence, vol. i. p. 515. 

2 Page 40. See also an apparent approval of the version in a piece 
called " Conversation " : reproduced in the New Foundling Hospital for 
Wit, vol. ii. pp. 186-190. 

167 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

Far more enthusiastic was the reception accorded to 
this alteration in France by the party there that dreaded 
the effects of the growing interest in Shakespeare, and 
the growing admiration of his methods which were 
beginning to manifest themselves in that country. 
Marmontel not only welcomed the version with exulta- 
tion, but he gave an account of its reception by the 
English public, which if not the product of his 
own imagination, was communicated to him exclu- 
sively. "Every day," he wrote, "the works of Shake- 
speare are abridged, are corrected. The celebrated 
Garrick has just cut out upon his stage the grave- 
diggers' scene and almost all the fifth act. Both piece 
and author have been only the more applauded." This 
felicitation of his disciple over the triumph which true 
art had achieved, Voltaire embodied later in his noted 
' Letter to the French Academy ' which was read at the 
meeting of August 25, 1776. He was then waging 
war with Le Tourneur's translation of Shakespeare, 
and Garrick's action had brought him peculiar grati- 
fication. It constituted a reproof to the perverted 
enthusiasts of his native land who were seeking to 
fasten upon France the acceptance of those barbar- 
ous atrocities which the reviving taste of England 
was beginning to cast aside. 

Neither Taylor's anticipation of future improvements 
of the same sort, nor Marmontel's belief that England 
was turning at last to the better way, was destined to 
be realized. Garrick's extraordinarj'- ability sustained 
the altered version while he himself was acting. His 
influence kept it on the Drury Lane stage for some 

168 



INTERMINGLING OF COMIC AND TRAGIC 

time after he had retired. But it is clear that the 
changes which he had made met with silent disfavor, 
where they did not receive outspoken condemnation. 
The time had gone by for any new liberties of this 
sort to be taken with approval ; it was a good deal, 
even, that they could be taken with impunity. "No 
bribe," says Reed, "but his own inimitable perform- 
ance could have prevailed on an English audience to 
sit patiently and behold the martyrdom of their favorite 
author." ^ This statement is not strictly true. The 
version was played by other actors while he was still 
manager, and also after he had left the stage. But 
it was never liked. " The spectators of Hamlet," says 
Davies, somewhat sadly, " would not part with their 
old friends, the grave-diggers. The people soon called 
for ' Hamlet,' as it had been acted from time immemo- 
rial." 2 What was most painful of all was that the altera- 
tion met with but little favor from the judicious who, 
it was expected, would welcome with delight the re- 
jection of what Garrick termed the rubbish of the fifth 
act. Walpole communicated the news of what the actor 
had done to his correspondent Mason. "I hope," was 
his accompanying sarcastic comment, " he will be re- 
warded with a place in the French Academy." ^ 

It did not, indeed, take Garrick long to become 
aware of the peril which he was running. He had 
made arrangements to publish his altered version. He 
speedily abandoned the project. He gave further evi- 

1 In Biographia Dramatica, under Hamlet, ed. of 1782. 

2 Davies' Dramatic Miscellanies, vol. iii. p. 163. 

* Correspondence of Walpole and Mason, vol. i. p. 48. 
169 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

dence of the fear which had taken hold of him. Not 
only was the altered play not printed, but no written 
copies of it were allowed to get into circulation. The 
actor, Tate Wilkinson, then patentee of the York and 
other theatres in the North, applied for one in vain. 
"It is not in my power to comply with your request 
to send you the corrections lately made in ' Hamlet,' " 
wrote in reply Victor, the treasurer of Drury Lane ; 
" but no such favor can be granted to any one, as I pre- 
sume the play will never be printed so altered, as they 
are far from being universally approved ; nay, in general 
greatly disliked by the million ; — therefore, no doubt, 
your country 'squires would be for horsewhipping the 
actor that had struck out that natural scene of the 
grave-diggers." Victor then went on to point out 
that Hamlet's consenting to go to England, and be- 
ing brought back by miracle, is altogether absurd, 
when his solemn engagement with his father's ghost 
is duly considered. Then unconsciously he revealed the 
superiority of the judgment of the masses to his own. 
" As I have already observed," he concluded, " the 
million will like, nay understand Shakespeare with 
all his glorious absurdities, nor suffer a bold intruder 
to cut them up." ^ 

The only consolation that could be received for this 
attitude of the artistically unregenerate was that they 
were incapable of reaching the elevated plane which 
their betters occupied. There were some of Garrick's 
admirers, however, who stood by him manfully, and 
without doubt approved in fullest sincerity of his 

^ Wilkinson's Memoirs of his own Life, vol. iv. p. 260. 
170 



4 



INTERMINGLING OF COMIC AND TRAGIC 

course. One of them complained that he had not 
gone far enough. " Twenty-five lines only added," 
wrote Hoadly, when his friend sent him word to 
that effect: "I fear too little has been done." ^ This 
writer, who was a clergyman for livelihood, and would 
have been a di-amatist if he had had sufficient ability, had 
felt somewhat hurt because he had not been consulted 
about this revision. It was a matter which he had 
more than once discussed with the actor. His inborn 
discernment and educated taste had indicated to him 
numerous places where Shakespeare's work required 
improvement. The behavior to each other of Hamlet 
and Ophelia was in his opinion a part that needed 
and most admitted great alteration. The conduct of 
the hero towards the heroine, in particular, had not 
been sufficiently worked out by the dramatist. No 
adequate cause had been given to account for the 
madness and death of the latter. This could and 
should be remedied; and here was the way in which 
it was done in one instance. The concluding lines 
of Hamlet's soliloquy end with his recognition of 

Ophelia in these words, — 

" Soft you now ! 
The fair Ophelia 1 " 

Then follows the request to be remembered in her 
prayers. After Hamlet's recognition of her presence, 
but before he addresses her personally, Hoadly sug- 
gested that the following lines should be added to 
the soliloquy, which would explain to the satisfaction 
of everybody the prince's subsequent conduct : — 

1 Gaixick Correspondence, vol. i. p. 515. 
171 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

" I have made too free 
With that sweet lady's ear. My place in Denmark, 
The time's misrule, my heavenly-urged revenge, 
Matters of giant-stature, gorge her love, 
As fish the cormorant. — She drops a tear, 
As from her book she steals her eyes on me. 
My heart ! Could I in my assumed distraction 
(Bred, says the common voice, from love of her) 
Drive her sad mind from all so ill-timed thoughts 
Of me, of mad ambition, and this world 1 
Nymph, in thy orisons be my sins remembered." i 

These priceless lines show us what the eighteenth 
century could do when it set out seriously to reform 
Shakespeare, to correct his negligence and refine his 
ruggedness in accordance with the requirements of 
taste and art. 

The altered 'Hamlet' held the stage at Drury Lane 
for nearly eight years. But it was not often played. 
The audience might put up with the version ; but 
they plainly did not love it. In this feeling»>high 
and low concurred. Accordingly, on April 21, 1780, 
little more than a year after Garrick's death, Hamlet 
was advertised to be acted as Shakespeare wrote it.^ 
Contemporary testimony shows that the abandonment 
of the alteration took place, not under the compulsion of 
active hostility, manifested according to the then usual 
custom in the playhouse itself, but simply in conse- 
quence of the refusal of people to attend the perform- 
ance of the piece. " Since the death of the player," said 
Reed in 1782, " the public has vindicated the rights of 
the poet by starving the theatre into compliance with 

1 Garrick Correspondence, vol. i. p. 573. Letter dated Sept. 30, 1773. 
* Genest, vol. vi. p. 133. 

172 



INTERMINGLING OF COMIC AND TRAGIC 

their wishes to see Hamlet as originally meant for 
exhibition." ^ Thus early disappeared from the boards 
the alteration so long desired by a certain class. It 
was practically the last serious attempt upon Shake- 
speare which correctness made as a tribute to an as- 
sumed higher taste. Some of Kemble's later versions 
were even viler; but they were not original. That 
actor only refashioned what others had previously ac- 
complished. Garrick's course in this matter is one of 
which explanation can be given, but for which defence 
cannot be made. The student of English constitu- 
tional history has frequent occasion to observe how 
infinitely superior has sometimes been the stupidity 
of juries to the wisdom of judiciaries. Examples of 
a similar sort do not so often meet the eye of the 
student of literary history. Still they are to be found. 
Among them there is perhaps no more striking illustra- 
tion than the present, of the superiority of judgment 
sometimes shown by the great mass of men to that 
arrogantly boasted of by the select body of self-ap- 
pointed arbiters of taste and guardians of dramatic 
propriety. 

1 Biographia Dramatica, ed. of 1782, under Hamlet. 



173 



CHAPTER V 

EEPKESENTATIONS OF VIOLENCE AND BLOODSHED 

The violation of the unities, the intermixture of comic 
scenes with tragic were two faults which in the eyes 
of the classicists placed an ineffaceable stigma upon the 
romantic drama. About their essential depravity both 
continental and English critics were agreed. Shake- 
speare, in consequence of his exemplifying these atroci- 
ties, was regularly made the subject of the tale which 
he was not thought to adorn, and served constantly to 
point its moral It is true that he had not acted dif- 
ferently from almost every one of his contemporaries. 
They were as regardless of these rules as he. But 
while others had sinned as much against art, he was 
the only one who had really survived. He was the 
only one who continued to impress himself upon suc- 
cessive generations. Particular plays of certain of his 
contemporaries — Fletcher especially, and occasionally 
Jonson and Massinger — were from time to time re- 
fitted for the stage and brought out during the eigh- 
teenth century. But they had at best but a partial 
success ; they often met with positive failure. " It 
may be remembered," said Colman in 1763, " that ' The 
Spanish Curate,' ' The Little French Lawyer,' and ' Scorn- 
ful Lady' of our authors," — that is, Beaumont and 
Fletcher, — " as well as ' The Silent Woman ' of Jonson, 

174 



VIOLENCE AND BLOODSHED 

all favorite entertainments of our predecessors, have 
within these few years encountered the severity of the 
pit, and received sentence of condemnation." ^ But of 
Shakespeare nothing of this sort could be said. His 
reign had never been disturbed. He had not only 
kept unbroken possession of the theatre, but was con- 
stantly extending his occupancy. It was therefore 
upon him that the weight of criticism fell. 

But a third grand distinction existed between the 
classical and the romantic drama. The French theatre 
— and the French theatre for a long time gave the law 
to continental Europe — had made an advance upon the 
ancient in the rigidity of its requirements. It restricted 
the liberty of representation to exceedingly narrow 
bounds. In particular, it carried, to an extreme, hos- 
tility to the introduction of scenes of violence. The 
audience were to be treated with the tenderest con- 
sideration. Nothing was to take place on the stage 
that could offend the susceptibilities of the most fas- 
tidious. No blood was to be shed in the sight of the 
spectator. There was indeed one singular modification 
of this restriction. A character in the tragedy could 
be permitted to kill himself, whether he did it by poison 
or steel: what he was not suffered to do was to kill 
some one else. And while nothing was to be shown 
on the stage which could offend the feelings through 
the medium of the eyes, equally was nothing to be 
narrated with the accompaniment of any adjuncts that 
could possibly arouse disagreeable sensations in the 
mind. Voltaire tells us how he was stirred in the 

1 Advertisement to the alteration of Philaster, 1763. 
175 



/ 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

English theatre by seeing Brutus harangue the people, 
while holding in his hand the bloody knife with which 
he had just stabbed Caesar. He somewhat regretfully 
remarked that no such method of representation would 
have been tolerated on the French stage, any more than 
would have been an assemblage made up of Roman plebe- 
ians and artisans. No bleeding body of the dead dictator 
could have been exposed in public. He was inclined 
to think — at least at first — that in this respect the 
French stage had gone too far. Here were legitimate 
opportunities for stage effect which it had deliberately 
abandoned. At other times he was disposed to justify 
its course. Scenes like these just mentioned, he ad- 
mitted, were natural ; but a French audience expected 
that nature should always be presented with some 
strokes of art. 

On their stage consequently all deeds of violence had 
to be narrated. Their actual performance took place be- 
hind the scenes. The audience learned of them from 
the mouth of some eyewitness who came to tell it 
what had happened. This method might spare the 
sensibilities of the hearers, but it assuredly did not 
add to the effectiveness of the play. One finds his 
admiration of the great French dramatists increasing 
when he recognizes under what limitations they la- 
bored. Nor need we shut our eyes to the fact that 
the method thus forced upon them had the advantages 
of its defects. It acted as a spur to the writer. It 
compelled him, in particular, to pay attention to ex- 
pression. Conscious that the success of his production 
would be little aided by attractions which appealed to 

176 



VIOLENCE AND BLOODSHED 

the eye, but must depend largely upon those which 
addressed the ear, he made up, so far as in him lay, 
for failure of action, by interest of narration, by beauty 
of description, and by all possible charm of verse. Ex- 
quisite poetry could undoubtedly add to the interest 
of dramatic action. The problem which the French 
author was called upon to solve was the extent to 
which it could be made to take its place. 

At this point the stages of the two nations diverged. 
During the period of which we are speaking, the Eng- 
lish critics had almost universally consented to the 
exceeding wickedness of the negative sin of disregard- 
ing the unities, and to the positive crime of intro- 
ducing comic matter into tragedy. But here as a body 
they stopped. They were no more satisfied than were 
English audiences, with plays in which narration took 
the place of action. There were those indeed, as we 
shall have occasion to observe, who sympathized with 
the French attitude. Some of them too were men of 
high literary and social position. On these accounts 
deference was paid to their opinions; but after all it 
was only in a half-hearted way that their views were 
supported by those who professed to follow their au- 
thority. Hence what is the third great distinction 
between the classical and the romantic school extended 
largely to theory as well as practice. The distinction 
is implied in the following queries: What is permis- 
sible to be shown upon the stage ? What is forbidden ? 
Or at least what is inexpedient ? These are questions 
that always present themselves to the dramatic author 
in the construction, and to the dramatic critic in the 
12 177 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

consideration, of plays which involve the results of 
violence and bloodshed. One business of a tragedy 
is to make away with people. How can this best be 
done, not effectually as regards the personages of the 
play, but effectively as regards the persons present to 
see and hear? Will it produce the most gratifying 
impression upon the audience to despatch the characters 
of the drama before their eyes, or to dispose of them 
behind the scenes, and let the knowledge of what has 
occurred reach them through the medium of their ears ? 
The classicists maintained stoutly that acts of violence 
should always be narrated and never represented. Ac- 
cording to their view that which would be disagreeable 
or painful to see in real life should never be brought 
before us on the stage. Hence in their drama not even 
the quietest and most commonplace of murders could 
be perpetrated in the sight of the spectators, for fear 
of shocking their feelings. 

But the Teutonic nations, at least the English, never 
took kindly to expedients of this nature. They wanted 
to see the business done themselves, and not get their 
knowledge of it from the reports of interested or pre- 
judiced observers. At the outset they unquestionably 
carried this feeling to an extreme. Our ancestors were 
very much like children who never enjoy a story so 
much as when it makes them shudder. " I wants to 
make your flesh creep," says the fat boy in ' Pickwick ' 
to Mrs. Wardle ; and to have the flesh creep all the 
while was an end frequently aimed at in the early 
tragedy of England. It was given to the shedding 
of blood on a grand scale. At times the boards fairly 

178 



VIOLENCE AND BLOODSHED 

swim in gore, as character after character is despatched. 
There can be no doubt that in the rude beginnings of 
the stage the audience, made up of all classes in the 
community, enjoyed this kind of treat. The coarse 
plenty of the feast was more than a compensation for 
its lack of flavor and elegance. Provided there was 
an ample supply of deeds of violence, they were ready 
to excuse the neglect of providing any motive for 
the acts, or the neglect of probability tliroughout the 
entire action. 

There is, however, a medium between the tameness 
of the classical school and the extravagance of the 
romantic. The adherents of the former, by the ex- 
treme aversion they manifested to the shedding of 
blood, were as eager to abolish the death penalty on 
the stage as the most pronounced sentimentalist is now 
in general legislation. They consequently abandoned 
opportunities of producing certain perfectly legitimate 
impressions. Especially did they deprive themselves 
of the ability to make use of pathetic and telling situa- 
tions, which add often to the effectiveness of a play, 
and afford no just reason to suppose that any outrage 
will be offered to the feelings of the most sensi- 
tive. A duel upon the stage, if properly conducted, 
gives vividness to the action ; it never fills us with 
serious apprehension. We may have the keenest in- 
terest aroused in the struggle ; but we experience no grief 
when we see one of the combatants fall. He is simply 
carrying on the necessary business of the play. His 
assumed death, accordingly, excites no more painful 
emotion in our souls than if we had learned that he 

179 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

had just stepped out into the next street. We do not 
even object to an occasional assassination, provided it 
be done with decency and discretion. If it is merely 
a plain businesslike despatching of a character, of 
whom it is desirable to get rid, its effect upon our 
sensibilities is far less than if in our daily walk we 
should chance to come across the actual killing of 
some dumb animal of even a low grade. 

But art which takes pleasure in the pathetic, and does 
not altogether shrink from the painful, can never well 
put up with the revolting and merely horrible. In 
representations of this sort the early English stage 
went to great lengths. Those plays which furnished 
the greatest number of scenes of blood were among the 
more successful, and frequently remained popular for 
long periods. Even after a purer taste had in large 
measure supplanted them with the majority, the crav- 
ing for this particular species of intellectual diet con- 
tinued to linger with individuals. "He that will 
swear," says Ben Jonson, in 1614, in the Induction 
to ' Bartliolomew Fair, ' " Jeronimo or Andronicus are 
the best plays yet, shall pass unexcepted here, as 
a man whose judgment shows it is constant, and 
hath stood still these five and twenty or thirty years. 
Though it be an ignorance, it is a virtuous and staid 
ignorance." These words make clear that more than one 
theatre-goer of the early time, after wandering about 
in what seemed to him the later barren wilderness of 
sentiment, looked back with a sigh to the strong stim- 
ulus which pieces of this sort afforded to his jaded 
nerves. The larger proportion of such early plays have 

180 



VIOLENCE AND BLOODSHED 

perished. Still there are a sufficient number of ex- 
amples extant to reveal the nature of the taste which 
caused their creation. 

Perhaps no fairer specimen of this kind of drama 
exists than the second part of ' Jeronimo, ' called ' The 
Spanish Tragedy,' which has just been mentioned. 
The popularity of this play during the early years of 
Shakespeare's professional life is attested by ample evi- 
dence. Lines taken from it are constantly bandied 
about by the characters in the contemporary or later 
drama. Usually, and perhaps invariably, this is done 
in sport ; but the play would never have been ridiculed, 
had not passages in it been made familiar by the fre- 
quent representation of the piece on the stage. Further- 
more, Ben Jonson's words furnish direct testimony to 
the favor with which it had been regarded. The secret 
of this favor is not hard to find. Murder goes on in it 
at the very liveliest rate. The last act in particular 
contributes a quota of six corpses to the grand total 
which is heaped upon the stage in the course of the 
performance. In truth, the personages of the drama 
disappear so rapidly towards the close, that by the time 
the play has reached its conclusion, it has to stop 
because there is hardly any one left to carry it on. 
Women as well as men take part in this war of exter- 
mination. Ways of death are various. One of the 
characters has the distinction of being killed by a pistol- 
shot; but there are three suicides, two hangings, and 
three stabbings. All these things take place in full 
view of the audience, while the hero, who gives his 
name to the piece, contributes an additional attraction 

181 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

to the general horror by biting off and spitting out his 
own tongue. 

Still the destruction of life in this play is so far from 
being unexampled that it has sometimes been rivalled, 
and in one instance at least has been surpassed. This 
is in the tragedy of ' Soliman and Perseda.' In it are 
fifteen characters besides the supernumeraries who are 
not of importance enough to be named. When the end 
is reached, there remains of this number of fifteen but 
one solitary survivor, and he a servant. Furthermore, 
of the miscellaneous crowd four are despatched, — two 
by the sword and two by being tumbled from the top 
of a tower. The lack, however, of contemporary allu- 
sion shows that this play never had the repute of ' The 
Spanish Tragedy.' The favor with which the latter 
was regarded cannot be questioned. No one will pre- 
tend it to be a specimen of the fine arts. But a large 
part of the audience that heard it originally with ap- 
plause was not made up of persons of refined taste, and 
had not as yet been taught by great exemplars what it 
was that a refined taste could accomplish. It therefore 
suited their humor. They did not object to it because 
of its excessive bloodshed ; they liked it the better on 
that very account. Even those who did not altogether 
approve it doubtless felt in a dim way that it possessed 
certain positive qualities which more than compensated 
for its literary defects. It meant business from the 
start. The characters did something; and the Eliza- 
bethan play-goer, especially of the earliest period, 
was very much like some novel-readers of our time, 
who are not contented unless they have an exciting 

182 



VIOLENCE AND BLOODSHED 

situation in the jfirst chapter. At any rate, they fully 
appreciated the fact that the first duty of a play that 
is to be acted is to have action. Accordingly, a few 
murders more or less were not worth taking into con- 
sideration. Whatever extravagance there may have 
been at times in its manifestation, it was in the eyes 
of the most cultivated a sound and healthy instinct 
which demanded that something should take place in 
stage representation besides the glittering generalities of 
rhetorical speeches under the guise of conversation. 

It was productions of the kind just mentioned that 
would present themselves to the young and aspiring 
dramatist as stamped with the seal of popular approba- 
tion. There would be nothing strange, therefore, in 
the fact that at the outset of his career Shakespeare 
should have been influenced by the practices of his 
predecessors, and would be disposed to give his audi- 
ence the precise sort of food which he knew from both 
observation and experience would please its palate. 
Nor would it be remarkable if traces of this truculent 
style of representation should cling to him through the 
whole of his career. That such was, to some extent, 
the case there can be no question. He followed the 
custom of his time in this as in other matters, though 
he usually followed it a great way off. In truth, here 
as elsewhere, his genius generally enabled him to seize 
what was good in the methods which were in vogue, 
and to reject what was bad. That he was in full sym- 
pathy with the principles of the romantic school in this 
very particular is evident from his procedure. The 
destruction of life in full view of the spectators takes 

183 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

place on a grand scale in some of his finest tragedies. 
At the close of ' Hamlet,' for instance, four of the 
principal characters of the play perish in swift succes- 
sion in sight of the audience, and a fifth consents to 
live only at the dying request of the hero of the piece. 
Such incidents as these shocked beyond expression the 
French critics of the eighteenth century and their 
followers. It was one of the things that led Voltaire 
to stigmatize this particular play as a coarse and bar- 
barous piece, that would never be tolerated by the 
lowest of the rabble in France and Italy; and to ex- 
press surprise that Shakespeare's example should still 
be followed by a people which possessed so pure and 
perfect a work of art as the 'Cato' of Addison. 

It is the extent to which this indiscriminate blood- 
shed is carried on in ' Titus Andronicus ' — the other 
play mentioned by Jonson — which has largely occa- 
sioned the controversy about the genuineness of that 
piece. If it be adjudged a production of Shakespeare's, 
it must be confessed that he improved upon even ' The 
Spanish Tragedy ' in the gruesome and the terrible. 
This particular play is found in the folio of 1623. It 
forms one of the six tragedies specifically mentioned by 
Meres, in 1598, as having been written by Shakespeare. 
Hardly any more convincing external evidence could be 
given. If testimony about authorship is worth any- 
thing at all, not much better can be asked. Yet so 
different is ' Titus Andronicus ' in style and treatment 
from the dramatist's other pieces, that many, and per- 
haps most, critics and commentators have not only been 
unwilling to concede that it is a production of his early 

184 



i 



VIOLENCE AND BLOODSHED 

apprenticeship as a dramatist, but that it is even a 
production of some one else which has undergone his 
revision sujfficiently to be entitled to a place among his 
works. Such at least is the avowed reason. Largely 
different is the real one. That is the character of the 
play itself. An atmosphere of cruelty, lust, adultery, 
and murder hangs like a pall over the whole piece. It 
is so repulsive in its savagery, so unsavory in what may 
fairly be termed its beastliness, that in spite of the 
strong external evidence in its favor, it is too much for 
the delicate nerves of most editors to admit even the 
possibility of its genuineness. 

However this may be, the play has an interest of its 
own as an illustration of what the early English stage 
could do in the accumulation of abhorrent incidents. 
Even could he be proved to have had no connection 
with it, the piece would be worthy of attention as a 
specimen of the example which Shakespeare had fre- 
quently before his eyes. The characters in it, whether 
designed as good or bad, all display the same propen- 
sity to crime. Titus Andronicus, the hero and patriot, 
kills one of his sons for venturing to remonstrate with 
him against a peculiarly foolish course of conduct he 
has determined to adopt. He stabs his daughter, 
Lavinia, in a fit of tenderness for her reputation. Two 
brothers are only prevented from slaying each other by 
the enticing prospect held out to them of having an 
equal share in crimes of ravishment, mutilation, and 
murder. The play indeed not only surpasses ' The 
Spanish Tragedy ' in the coarseness of its horrors, but 
in the number and variety of deaths that are shown 

185 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

upon the stage. The plot of ' Titus Andronicus ' is 
carried on by fourteen principal characters. There are 
also eight minor ones that take part in the action, and 
in most cases appear in but a single scene. Of the 
fourteen principal characters eleven are successively 
despatched. The minor ones are somewhat more fortu- 
nate : of the eight five escape alive. There is a certain 
variety in the manner of the deaths inflicted. Seven 
are stabbed, two have their throats cut, two are offi- 
cially beheaded, one is hewn in pieces for a sacrifice, 
and one hanged ; and what must have been a bitter dis- 
appointment to the audience of that day, the principal 
villain of all does not meet his fate before their eyes, 
but is reserved to be set breast deep in earth and there 
starve to death. The only satisfaction to the reader of 
this ghastly story is that hardly one of the characters 
who is poetically condemned to die appears fit to live. 

Terrible as this account may seem — and some of the 
most repulsive features of the work have not been men- 
tioned — there is no question that it was and remained 
for a considerable period a popular play. It was a 
popular play for the same reason as was ' The Spanish 
Tragedy.' Harrowing scenes were what those desired 
who attended the theatre. In both of these produc- 
tions they got for the least expenditure of money the 
amplest supply of horror. Whether Shakespeare wrote 
this particular piece or not, it can hardly be denied 
that to a certain extent he was influenced by the taste 
which begot it and enjoyed it. There are one or two 
things in his greatest plays which it does not require 
peculiar delicacy of feeling to regard with a slight 

186 



VIOLENCE AND BLOODSHED 

sensation of distaste. The smothering of Desdemona 
by Othello in sight of the spectators may perhaps be 
endured ; but it is, assuredly, not a scene which minds 
ordinarily constituted can look upon with unalloyed 
pleasure. But it is difficult to find any defence for 
the representation in ' Lear ' of the extrusion of Glou- 
cester's eyes. It is horrible even to read of, and 
naturally far more horrible to see enacted. Similar 
atrocities, it is fair to say, had been exhibited upon the 
English stage before. In ' Selimus, ' a tragedy now 
ascribed to Greene, one of the sultan's advisers, acting 
as his messenger, has not only his eyes put out in full 
view of the audience, but has his arms cut off also; 
and with these latter carefully deposited in his bosom 
is sent back to his master. It may be added that the loss 
of life which goes on in this last-mentioned play makes 
it worthy to take its place by the side of the pieces 
already described. There are about two dozen person- 
ages who take part in its action. Of this number more 
than half — embracing nearly all the important char- 
acters — suffer violent deaths. Three are disposed of 
by poison; but the favorite method is strangulation, 
which carries off six. At the end the author encour- 
aged his hearers by the assurance that if the first part 
gave them pleasure he should follow it with a second 
part, which would recount even greater murders. 

Representations of this sort are not only inartistic, 
but in the long run they are ineffective even with the 
class which at first takes delight in them. They are 
not only repellent to the cultivated ; they cease in time 
to stimulate the over- jaded appetites of the rude, soon 

187 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

satiated with horror. lu its insistence upon the rejec- 
tion of revolting details of this character the French 
theatre was unquestionably right. Nor is there any 
necessity for their representation in order to produce 
the desired impression upon the audience. Even deeds 
of violence, which can be properly acted under certain 
conditions, can in the hands of the great master be 
often made to stir the feelings more profoundly by 
narration than could possibly be done by exhibition. 
In ' Macbeth ' the murder of Duncan affects the hearer 
far more deeply because it is not seen. The accessories 
impress us far more than could the actual sight. The 
marvellous art of the dramatist has here drawn a pic- 
ture which thrills the soul, but never once offends the 
susceptibilities. We feel the terrible nature of the deed 
that has been perpetrated ; we are in the fullest sympathy 
of comprehension with the actors in the work of dark- 
ness, which for them will murder sleep forever after; 
but never once does there pass through the mind a sug- 
gestion of that disgust, that shrinking horror which the 
mere sight of blood often causes, when shed by men 
acting under the ordinary instincts of self-preservation. 
In this particular the art of ' Macbeth ' is far higher than 
that exhibited in the corresponding passages of ' Lear ' 
and ' Othello, ' to which reference has just been made. 

If the English stage had gone to one extreme in the 
portrayal of scenes of violence, the French had gone 
to the other in refraining from the slightest exhibition 
of them, with the one exception of suicide. In this 
abstention their critics took great pride. In their eyes 
the shedding of blood, whether of a single individual 

188 



VIOLENCE AND BLOODSHED 

or in the shape of wholesale slaughter, was equally un- 
pardonable. It was contrary to decorum, to theatrical 
good manners. Naturally the opposite course of pro- 
ceeding met with their severest condemnation. The 
censures of the practice by some of their authors af- 
fected to a certain extent English opinion. This is 
true at least of the criticism of those of them who were 
translated. One of these was the exile, St. Evremond, 
who spent in London most of the last forty years of 
his long life. Essays of his on the drama were brought 
out in 1687 in an English version. They reflected those 
critical views prevailing in his native land, which had 
become accepted in a small circle in his adopted one. 
But the circle was an aristocratic one, and St. Evre- 
mond is not to be blamed, therefore, for regarding it 
as the exponent of the best taste. Like most French 
critics, he did not deem it necessary to know a lan- 
guage in order to pass decisive judgments both upon 
the character of the people who spoke it and of the 
literature they produced. Though living in England, 
he had not thought it worth while to learn the English 
tongue. That ignorance, however, did not prevent him 
from finding in their drama four or five tragedies which 
with proper omissions could be regarded as excellent 
plays. Outside of these four and five he saw nothing 
but a shapeless and indigested mass, a crowd of con- 
fused adventures, without consideration of time or 
place, and without any regard to decorum, where eyes 
that rejoice in cruel sights may be fed with murders 
and with bodies weltering in blood. He was struck by 
the delight which the audience took in plays of this 

189 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

character. To palliate the horror of their scenes by 
relating instead of performing cruel acts would result, 
he observed, in depriving the spectators of the sight 
that pleased them most. 

This was the view generally taken by French critics 
during the whole of the century that followed. Upon 
the enormity of the English drama in the matter of 
violence Voltaire, in particular, insisted vehemently. 
In the dedication of Zaire^ published in 1732, to his 
friend Falkener, he gave a good deal of advice to his 
friend's countrymen on this point. It was substantially 
as follows. Your stage, he wrote, is contaminated 
with horrors, with gibbets, with blood-sheddings. Re- 
fine the uncouth action of your savage Melpomenes, 
and strive for the praise of the best judges of all times 
and nations. Addison has shown you the way. In 
spite of particular defects, he is the poet of the wise. 
Imitate that great man, therefore, though only when 
he is right. Voltaire recognized later the impossi- 
bility of changing the national taste. In his opinion 
Shakespeare had corrupted it; and against the over- 
powering influence of that dramatist it was vain to 
struggle. 

For, that the taste for scenes of this sort was bad 
taste, there was no doubt in the minds of French critics, 
and of those in England who re-echoed their opinions. 
St. Evremond tells us that the better-bred objected to 
these bloody spectacles. But he adds, ancient custom 
and national preference prevail over the delicacy of 
private persons. It cannot, however, be denied that 
this foreign view affected in some measure English 

190 



VIOLENCE AND BLOODSHED 

opinion, and, during the eighteenth century particu- 
hirly, English practice. Several of their writers con- 
demned the extent to which representations of these 
scenes of violence and bloodshed were carried, while 
not condemning the practice itself. The dreadful 
butchery which took place upon the English stage was 
denounced by Addison as the most absurd and bar- 
barous of the methods used to excite pity and terror. ^ 
It exposed the nation to the contempt and ridicule of 
its neighbors. Yet even his somewhat timid nature 
could not approve the conduct of the French in banish- 
ing death from representation entirely. Their avoid- 
ance of blood had, in his opinion, led them into 
absurdities as great as those which accompanied its 
indiscriminate shedding. There were others, however, 
— they were not numerous, but they existed, — who 
were willing to go much farther than he in concession 
to the classicists. A body of men could be found in 
England who would gladly have shorn the stage of the 
representation of all acts of violence whatever. They 
professed to regard them as lacking in art. " Murders," 
said Roscommon, "cannot be allowed on the stage, let 
'em be of what nature soever. None but bad poets, 
who had not genius enough to move by the narration, 
have introduced bloody spectacles."^ Chesterfield, in 
commenting upon the faults of the theatre of his own 
country, said that the English ought to give up "all 
their massacres, racks, dead bodies, and mangled car- 
casses, which they so frequently exhibit upon the 

1 Spectator, No. 44, April 20, 1711. 

2 Notes on Horace's 'Art of Poetry,' line 185 (1680). 

191 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

stage." ^ Arthur Murphy, the dramatist, admitted that 
it was a corruption of the liberty enjoyed by the play- 
wright to permit blood to be shed before the audience. ^ 
In 1759 Mrs. Lennox, assisted by certain writers, — ■ 
among whom was Dr. Johnson, — brought out a trans- 
lation of Brumoy's Theatre des Grecs. It was preceded 
by a preface contributed by the Earl of Orrery, the friend 
of Pope and Swift. In it he gave expression to what 
had now become in some quarters a regular conven- 
tional criticism. "Whatever may have been chosen 
for the subject of tragedy," he wrote, "the English 
theatre has made itself too long remarkable for cover- 
ing the stage with dead bodies, and exhibiting all the 
horrors of murder and execution." 

But these views, however warmly and frequently ex- 
pressed, were, after all, confined to a comparatively 
limited number. Nor did they exert much influence 
over the opinion of the general public. There is no 
question that the vast body of frequenters of the 
theatre — the common people they may be called, if 
one so chooses, though there were among them many 
uncommon people — could not endure a tame recital to 
the ear of what they felt should be pictured to the eye. 
Addison was not alone in thinking the French theatre 
had gone too far. Even Chesterfield, who denounced 
the English stage for its barbarous ferocity, found fault 
with the French for its constant substitution of dec- 
lamation for action. If those so partial by nature 
to restraint upon the liberty of the dramatist could 

1 Letter to his eon, Jan. 23, 1752. 

2 Gray's Inn Journal, No. 20, Feb. 9, 1754. 

192 



VIOLENCE AND BLOODSHED 

express themselves in this way, it was inevitable that 
the great mass of cultivated men should be much more 
outspoken. Not only did a large number of the Eng- 
lish playwrights refuse to adapt their action to conti- 
nental ideas of decorum, but the English criticism of 
that day, ordinarily subservient to the French in ques- 
tions concerning the drama, revolted in this instance 
against the imposition of this restriction. Further- 
more, it resented the attempt. In answer to the attacks 
made upon its own theatre, it retorted, with a good deal 
of justice, that the declamatory speeches in which the 
French delighted would make an English audience 
yawn. Even such as were willing to accept the uni- 
ties as the final deliverance of art could not look with 
approval upon plays in which there was little but mono- 
logue, or orations in the form of dialogue. Their 
resentment was pictured by Garrick in the epilogue 
previously quoted, to the tragedy of ' Athelstan, ' pro- 
duced in 1756. That great manager as well as great 
actor had his eye constantly fixed upon what his audi- 
ences would care to see and hear. In the following 
lines he bore witness not only to the diversities of 
opinion then prevailing, but clearly indicated, also, 
how deep was becoming the indignation of his country- 
men at the depreciation to which Shakespeare was sub- 
jected in this matter at the instance of the idolaters of 
the French stage : — 

" The youths, to whom France gives a new belief, 
Who look with horror on a rump of beef ; 
On Shakespeare's plays with shrugged-up shoulders stare. 
These plays ? They 're bloody murders, — barbare. 
13 193 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

And yet the man has merit — Entre nous, 
He 'd been damned clever, had he read Bossu. 
' Shakespeare read French ! ' roars out a surly cit, 
When Shakespeare wrote, our valor matched our -vrit : 
Had Britons then been fops, Queen Bess had hanged 'em, 
Those days they never read the French, — they banged 'em." 

So deeply ingrained, indeed, in the national character 
was the taste for action as opposed to narration, that it 
is noticeable that in the alterations of all sorts to which 
the plays of Shakespeare were subjected to meet the 
requirements of an assumed higher art, it was rarely 
the case that his scenes of violence were struck out or 
even modified. All other kinds of changes could be 
made and were made. Other agencies demanded by 
the taste of the age or of the writer were brought into 
operation, such as the principle of poetic justice, the 
introduction of the passion of love, the elevation of the 
character of the hero or heroine. But no inclination 
was manifested to dispense with acts of bloodshed or 
with scenes of horror. If such were discarded, it was 
for some other reason than objection to their nature. 
It was so little the case that fault was found with repre- 
sentations of this sort by the public or by the majority 
of the critics, that in the alterations which were made 
the number of cruel deeds was more often increased 
than diminished. Tate subjected the tragedy of ' Lear ' 
to most violent and indefensible changes; yet in his 
version the extrusion of Gloucester's eyes went on in 
sight of the audience. He could plead that this was a 
necessity forced upon him ; but no such excuse can be 
offered for the introduction of a similar scene in the 
adaptation of ' Cymbeline, ' which Durfey produced in 

194 



VIOLENCE AND BLOODSHED 

1682 under the title of ' The Injured Princess, or the 
Fatal Wager.' In this Cloten is represented as put- 
ting out the eyes of one of the characters in full view 
of the spectators. 

In fact, there was frequently a disposition to revert 
to the taste of the pre-Shakespearean period, as if the 
age needed a stronger stimulus for enjoyment than 
his comparatively bloodless scenes provided. In Colley 
Gibber's version of ' Richard III.' a portion of the final 
act of the last part of ' Henry VI.' was added. This 
had the incidental result of contributing an additional 
murder to a play amply stocked with them at the out- 
set. Tate in his alteration of ' Coriolanus ' took pains 
to set forth a feast of horrors. Not only does the hero 
of the piece meet with a violent death, but also his wife 
and his son. He kills Aufidius, by whom he is in turn 
mortally wounded; while a new character, Nigridius, 
the villain of the play, who has just been boasting that 
he has broken the bones of young Marcius, is himself 
slain by Volumnia, who has been made raving mad. 
As a result, the stage at the end is piled with corpses. 
No part of this ridiculous travesty of the terrible was 
retained by Dennis in the alteration which he prepared 
some thirty years later of this same tragedy. But even 
for him there were apparently not deaths enough. His 
sense of poetical justice, as we shall see later, over-rode 
the requirements of history, lack of conformity to which 
he had elsewhere imputed as a fault to Shakespeare. 

It is unnecessary to multiply instances ; but as regards 
this matter, there is one alteration which demands spe- 
cial notice as an example of the taste of the times. The 

195 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

terrible character of the drama of ' Titus Andronicus ' 
assuredly stood in no need of being heightened. It 
might seem impossible to improve upon it in the accu- 
mulation of horrors. Yet this was accomplished by 
Edward Ravenscroft in an adaptation brought out in 
1G78, and published in 1687. To the emperor and 
Tamora he served up a banquet surpassing even the 
Thyestean. No dish is brought in which does not con- 
tain some part of the hearts and tongues of the two 
sons of the queen, no wine is drunk which is not mixed 
with their blood. Tamora also stabs the infant which 
she has borne to the Moor. The latter is struck with 
admiration for the height of iniquity to which his 
paramour has risen above him; all he can do is to ex- 
press a desire to eat the slain child. The audience was 
further gratified by having this most detestable of char- 
acters put on the rack, tortured, and finally burned to 
death. Ravenscroft was impressed with the excellence 
of his improvements. "Compare the old play with 
this," he proudly said in his preface; "you '11 find that 
none in all that author's works ever received greater 
alterations or additions, the language not only refined, 
but many scenes entirely new, besides most of the 
principal characters heightened, and the plot much in- 
creased." Horrors like these are disagreeable even to 
read about; to see them enacted with satisfaction re- 
quires a stronger stomach than that possessed by the 
modern man. Yet Ravenscroft tells us that his version 
was successful on the stage. 

Such a play marked the extreme in one direction; 
it is fair to add that it was an extreme very rarely 

196 



VIOLENCE AND BLOODSHED 

reached. Still the taste for productions of this sort 
never ceased to exist. As early as 1667 Dryden had 
commented on the increasing fondness for carnage on 
the stage. In the epilogue to his 'Wild Gallant,' 
revived that year, he told his audience that they were 
growing savages; that nothing but human flesh could 
please their palate; that if no blood was drawn, then 
the play was naught. The extreme in the other direc- 
tion met with favor from some, but it was not often 
that it pleased generally. About the middle of the 
eighteenth century Colley Gibber brought out in an 
epilogue to a piece, then first acted, the distinction 
between the feelings of French and English audiences. 
Of the character of the production in question, which 
was called ' Eugenia, ' he said, — ■ 

" Ours is all sentiment, blank verse, and virtue, 
Distress — but yet no bloodshed to divert ye. 
Such plays in France perhaps may cut a figure ; 
But to our critics here they 're mere soup-meagre ; 
Though there they never stain their stage with blood, 
Yet English stomachs love substantial food. 
Give us the lightning's blaze, the thunder's roll I 
The pointed dagger, and the poisoning bowl ! 
Let drums' and trumpets' clangor swell the scene, 
Till the gor'd battle bleed in every vein." 

The preference of English audiences for scenes of vio- 
lence to the exhibition of delicate sentiment, as it was 
called, was a source of perpetual grief to the English 
admirers of the French stage. Works modelled after 
those which on that had found favor, with their careful 
abstention from the flow of blood and their unlimited 
indulgence in the flow of words, either did not succeed 

197 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

at all, or their success was usually restricted to a single 
season. The reason of this was clear to the- advocates 
of pure dramatic art. Such productions were too 
chaste, too elegant to suit the coarse intellectual appe- 
tite of the crowd which frequented the English theatre. 
It was primarily the fault of the race that it could not 
appreciate their quiet refined beauty. From the very 
beginning it had been in love with tumult and noise 
and slaughter. But for the continuous and continued 
existence of this taste Shakespeare was held respon- 
sible. A multitude of witnesses might be summoned 
to prove the existence of both these beliefs. Here we 
content ourselves with two verdicts pronounced from 
different quarters upon two pieces produced at about 
the same time. These will give a correct conception of 
the state of mind that was then widely prevalent with 
a certain class of men. 

The first of these pieces is the play of ' Eugenia, ' 
which has just been mentioned. It was the work of 
the Rev. Philip Francis, better known as a translator 
of Horace, best known as the father of the man in 
whose behalf the most persistent claim has been put 
forth for the authorship of the letters of Junius. It 
was an imitation of the Cenie of Madame de Grafigny, 
and was brought out at Drury Lane in February, 1752. 
In successive letters to his son Chesterfield gave an 
account of its fortunes. He reported its success on the 
first two nights with pleasure and also with surprise. 
He had no expectation that it would do so well, con- 
sidering how long British audiences had been accus- 
tomed to murder, rack, and poison in every tragedy. 

198 



VIOLENCE AND BLOODSHED 

"But," he added, "it affected the heart so much that 
it triumphed over habit and prejudice. All the women 
cried, and all the men were moved." But this agree- 
able prospect of the triumph of delicacy and refinement 
did not continue. A few days later he wrote that the 
play had failed, in spite of the fact that it pleased most 
people of good taste. "The boxes," he said, "were 
crowded till the sixth night, when the pit and gallery 
were totally deserted, and it was dropped. Distress 
without death was not sufficient to affect a true British 
audience."^ The modern reader will find this piece 
a representative of a numerous class of eighteenth- 
century plays, in which English dulness has been 
added to French regularity. It is a tragi-comedy, 
though styled by its author a tragedy. The plot is 
a love-story, without reality, without probability, and 
without interest. Even its villain gains not the slight- 
est share of respect, because he imitates the others in 
persistently acting like a fool. It is a tribute to Gar- 
rick's phenomenal power of representation that the 
piece was played for more than a single night. Yet 
there is no doubt that this wretched stuff pleased a 
certain class of both hearers and readers who affected 
to admire its peculiar delicacy of sentiment. To her 
sister Mrs. Delany wrote that it was "much the most 
pleasing (I won't presume to say best, not being a suffi- 
cient judge) of any modern play that has come out these 
twenty years." ^ 

The other one of these two pieces was a tragedy 

V 1 Letters of Feb. 20 and March 2, 1752. 

2 Delany Correspondence, vol. iii. p. 85. 
199 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

styled ' Boadicia.' It was written by Richard Glover, 
echoes of whose once much-lauded epic of ' Leonidas ' 
occasionally fall upon modern ears; it was brought 
out at Drury Lane in December, 1753. As regards 
bloodshed, it had followed the most approved French 
methods. Battles are fought, but no one sees them. 
Several of the characters are reported as losing their 
lives, but all of them refrain from shocking the audi- 
ence by any actual exhibition of death-agony. One of 
them, indeed — the wife of the Briton leader — perishes 
in their sight; but she conforms to the proprieties by 
taking a potion which lulls her to death as gently as if 
it were a delightful sleep. The play is further written 
with all the pomp of eighteenth-century poetical dic- 
tion. Genuine passion expresses itself simply and 
directly; but nothing of that sort is found here. No 
stress of approaching danger can restrain the utterance 
of protracted similes; no excitement of feeling can 
induce the speaker to use ordinary words. A Roman 
indignantly reproaching his comrade for effeminacy 
bids him seek his Campanian garden, and there nurse, 
not flowers, but "the gaudy- vested progeny of Flora." 
This play, in which Garrick took a leading part, met 
with a fair degree of favor. It was acted eight times 
continuously, and twice more before the season closed. 
After that it was never heard of again. But the success 
which it had at the time was felt by the friends of art 
not to be commensurate with the elegant language em- 
ployed. "I cannot but remark," said Murphy, "that 
the applause it met with was scarcely warm enough for 
such fine writing." He then went on to give the 

200 



VIOLENCE AND BLOODSHED 

reason of this coolness. It was, as might have been 
expected, the now conventional one. Shakespeare had 
made the English all so fond of savage liberty that if 
plays were written in accordance with the rules and 
simplicity of the Stagirite, the scenes would not be 
thought busy enough. Still he was confident that if 
the judicious Voltaire were to examine this tragedy, 
he would confess that it was conformable to his own 
delicacy and good sense, and deserved a place among 
the best of modern productions.^ 

This piece, in its turn, was a representative of numer- 
ous eighteenth-century tragedies. Its heroine, so far 
from being an impressive character, does nothing but 
scold. She is really little more than a virago of a low 
type. Declamatory rant, such as is found in it in pro- 
fusion, was not likely to wean away an English audi- 
ence from the love of plays in which there was plenty 
of action, and frequently of action involving the loss of 
life by various methods and on a grand scale. In con- 
sequence, at least partly in consequence, of their fond- 
ness for spectacles of this kind the English came to be 
considered on the continent as a peculiarly savage and 
sanguinary people. They were supposed to delight in 
brutal acts and bloody shows. Their reputation for 
this was perhaps established before their theatrical 
exhibitions confirmed and extended it. The French 
critic, Rapin, for instance, who made no pretence to 
know anything about English literature, assumed as 
an indisputable fact the ferocity of the English people. 
For that reason, as well as on account of the energy of 

1 Gray's Inn Journal, No. 11, Dec. 8, 1753. 
201 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

their language, be believed tbe race to be possessed of a 
genius for tragedy. These islanders, he tells us, are 
separated from the rest of men. By the nature of their 
temperament they love blood in their sports, they de- 
light in cruelty. Imputations of this sort led Rapin's 
translator, the amiable Rymer, to put in a mild protest 
against such an estimate being taken of "the best- 
natured nation under the sun." He could only ascribe 
so gross a misconception to the character of their trag- 
edies. There are probably more murders done on our 
stage, he said, than upon all the other stages of Europe. 
Travellers, therefore, who got their conception of the 
English character from the English theatre might fairly 
conclude that the English were the cruellest-minded 
people in Christendom. ^ 

This belief continued to prevail on the continent for 
no short time. Before the end of the seventeenth cen- 
tury reference is made to its existence by several writers. 
At a later period Addison, in his protest against the 
undue exhibition of scenes of violence upon the stage, 
remarked that in consequence of the frequency of their 
portrayal, foreign critics had taken occasion to describe 
the English as a people that delight in blood. ^ This 
view, however widely accepted, could not long endure, . 
as soon as intercourse between nations became closer. 
When the islanders began to be seen frequently upon 
the continent, the futility of the opinion was speedily 
made manifest. It was recognized that the English 

1 Preface to Rymer's translation of Rapin's Reflexions sur la Poe'tique 
d'Aristote (1674). 

2 Spectator, No. 44, April 20, 1711. 

202 



VIOLENCE AND BLOODSHED 

were no fonder of blood than their neighbors. Hence 
it became necessary to devise some other reason to 
account for the fondness they displayed for spectacles 
full of terrible scenes. What was it in their nature 
that led them to see with pleasure such exhibitions? 
It was a perverted taste, to be sure, but how did the 
taste come to be perverted? St. Evremond had long 
before been ready with his answer. " To die is so small 
a matter to the English," he wrote, "that there is need 
of images more ghastly than death itself to affect 
them." A somewhat different theory was put forth 
later by the actor and author Riccoboni, who in 1738 
published a work containing reflections upon the differ- 
ent theatres of Europe. From him it was adopted by 
LaPlace, who about the middle of the eighteenth cen- 
tury introduced to the knowledge of his countrymen 
some of the chief works of the English stage. The first 
of his eight volumes began with a discourse upon the 
characteristics of the drama he was translating. In it 
we find the English fondness for the terrible and the 
horrible philosophically explained. 

It was all owing to temperament. The English, we 
are told, are by nature contemplative, disposed to 
revery, liable to be absorbed in profound thought. It 
is for that reason that their writers have treated the 
most elevated subjects with profundity and success. 
Consequently, their dramatic authors are compelled to 
resort to the most violent devices in order to break up 
this constitutional habit. Unless the matter which the 
theatre brings before them be presented with striking 
and terrible accompaniments, their minds will not be 

203 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

stirred nor their attention fixed. Thoughtful persons, 
furthermore, are by nature melancholy, and are little 
disposed to give themselves up to the illusions of the 
theatre. Their constant study of the true renders their 
hearts unwilling to accept that which merely resembles 
the true. They want to see things as they are, and not 
as they are reported. They are averse to being bored 
by a recital of what they feel they have a right to wit- 
ness at first hand. Hence the frequent changes of 
scene, the diverse spectacles represented. It was in 
this genial way that friendly criticism explained what 
hostile criticism denounced as nothing but the outcome 
of a rude and barbarous taste. 

It can be conceded that up to a certain point the 
objection to the introduction of scenes of violence has a 
foundation in both nature and reason. The sense of 
sight is no more to be unnecessarily offended than the 
sense of hearing or the sense of smell. Nothing should 
be seen on the stage which will arouse disagreeable 
sensations, nothing heard from it which will call up 
revolting or disgusting images. The French critics 
carried their objections to any representations of this 
sort very far. They did not spare the ancients for 
failing to conform to French ideas of propriety. They 
took exception to the way in which Philoctetes speaks 
of the plasters and rags which he a^Dplied to his sores ; 
and equally so to the description which Tiresias gives 
in the ' Antigone ' of the filth of the ill-omened birds 
which had fed on the carcass of Polynices. There is 
always risk in criticism of this sort, directed against 
details in works known to us only through the medium 

204 



VIOLENCE AND BLOODSHED 

of translation, whether made by ourselves or others. 
The words of one language frequently arouse quite 
different sensations in the mind from those produced 
by the words of another, which strictly correspond in 
meaning. The associations that gather about them in 
two tongues are often essentially unlike. Only in the 
matter of our own speech can we feel justified in 
expressing positive opinion. Nothing, for illustration, 
can be more offensive than Fletcher's representation in 
' The Sea- Voyage ' of the suffering that goes on among 
those who are so reduced by the lack of food that they 
contemplate killing one of their own number to save 
themselves from starvation. ^ Of all times, this would 
seem the last for the display of wit ; yet it is the very 
time he selects. Everything which is said is, in con- 
sequence, wholly out of place. Nor is that the worst. 
We are not only struck by the inappropriateness of the 
conversation which goes on, we are also disgusted by 
the nauseousness of its details. 

In the matter of tragi-comedy we have seen that it 
was Shakespeare's practice that had finally justified the 
romantic drama. Just so did his example justify the 
artistic liberty of the playwright to deal with represen- 
tation of scenes of violence, subject not to conventional 
law, but to the capability he possessed of producing 
effects at once powerful and pleasing. That in this 
particular he himself occasionally went to an extreme, 
may be conceded. Still it is very rarely the case that 
he pushed the privilege of the stage too far, or put the 
feelings of the audience to any undue test. On that 

1 Act iii. scene 1. 
205 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

delicate border line which separates the more from the 
less, he in general trod not only unhesitatingly but 
safely. It was his conduct in the revolt that went on 
from this rule of the classicists, as well as in the devia- 
tions previously considered, which secured for the 
romantic drama, even in foreign lands, first toleration 
and then approval. For its adherents he vindicated 
their full right to deal in their own way with the mate- 
rials upon which they labored. Had it not been for 
him, there was certainly danger, at one time, that the 
English race, in spite of its natural distaste for produc- 
tions in which declamation and narrative usurp the place 
of action, might have taken up its home for a while 
within that narrow circle of ideas which looked upon 
such pieces as the only ones conforming to true art. 
Efforts were put forth at various periods to banish from 
the stage painful and cruel scenes. Examples of this 
disposition can be found in the very time in which 
Shakespeare flourished. In Daniel's never-acted play 
of ' Cleopatra ' the death of the heroine was not to be 
witnessed; instead a messenger announces the circum- 
stances attending it in a speech that takes up more 
than two hundred and fifty lines. It requires no great 
stretch of imagination to surmise the sort of reception 
which a long-winded oration of this sort would have 
had in the stormy English theatre of the Elizabethan 
period. The actor who persisted in repeating it would 
have run the risk of meeting at the hands of an indig- 
nant audience the fate he was trying to describe ; and 
few would then have been found to deny that he deserved 
the death he had been made to suffer. 

206 



VIOLENCE AND BLOODSHED 

Attempts of this same general nature met with more 
favor in the eighteenth century. It seemed for a time, 
indeed, that the effort to discard from stage representa- 
tion scenes of violence with the circumstances attending 
them, might gain a temporary triumph : anything more 
than temporary it never could have been. The im- 
propriety of such representations was preached from a 
hundred critical pulpits. Supported, too, as this view 
was by many who were regarded as authoritative leaders 
of public opinion, it could not fail to make then a certain 
number of converts. Writers for the stage were disposed 
to comply with the requirement. The politer part of 
the audiences — the occupants of the boxes — frequently 
felt it their duty to admire works in which restraint of 
this sort, as well as other kinds of poetical decorum, had 
been faithfully observed. In their secret hearts they 
found such plays depressingly dull ; but they were pre- 
pared to sacrifice their genuine feelings on the altar of 
art. Their state of mind is depicted in a lively after- 
piece of Mrs. Clive's, first brought out in 1750, in 
which a female author gives her reasons for preparing a 
burletta for the stage. "My motive for writing," she 
is represented as saying, "was really compassion: the 
town has been so overwhelmed with tragedies lately 
that they are in one entire fit of the vapors. They 
think they love 'em, but it is no such thing. I was 
there one night this season at a tragedy, and there was 
such a universal yawn in the house, that had it not 
been for a great quantity of drums and trumpets, that 
most judiciously came in every now and then to their 
relief, the whole audience would have fallen asleep. "^ 
1 The Kehearsal, or Bays in Petticoats, p. 15. 
207 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

In a similar strain Bentley's son, the friend of Wal- 
pole and Gray, deplored the general decadence which 
had overtaken creative work in the age which felicitated 
itself upon its lofty critical standards. In a poetical 
epistle to Lord Melcombe, he observed, — 

" With Milton epic drew its latest breath, 
Since Shakespeare tragedy puts us to death." ^ 

It requires now the painful reading of the eighteenth- 
century classical drama to appreciate the exact jus- 
tice of these references to its character. Fortunately 
that portion of the audience which filled the pit 
and the galleries felt themselves under no obliga- 
tion to pretend to like what they found unendurably 
tedious. It was they who all along had instinc- 
tively recognized that the course which Shakespeare 
had taken was the only one which ought to be taken. 
It can therefore be said justly that to him in this re- 
spect, as in others, the deliverance of the drama is due. 
Furthermore, he not only wrought it solely, he wrought 
it completely. Criticism, which once found no word too 
severe to arraign his methods, has at last toiled tardily 
after him to acknowledge them as being in accordance 
with the highest art. For Shakespeare himself it has 
therefore been a personal triumph as well as the triumph 
of a cause. 

1 St. James's Magazine, vol. ii. p. 5 (1762). 



208 



CHAPTER VI 

JUNOR DRAMATIC CONVENTIONS 

The disregard of the unities, the intermingling of 
comic and tragic scenes in the same production, the 
representation of deeds of violence by action instead 
of narration, — these are the three essential character- 
istics of the romantic drama as opposed to the classical. 
Other differences there are ; but they are accidental and 
changing: these are distinctive and permanent. But 
in addition to them sprang up a body of conventions of 
another kind. Some of them were accepted only in 
limited circles, and served little other purpose than to 
give the critic who looked upon them as infallible an 
opportunity to chastise the author who failed to observe 
them. Others there were which for a certain period 
were very generally accepted. They have furthermore 
been treated occasionally as distinctions between the 
two dramatic schools. Such, however, they are not in 
reality. To a slight extent they becam.e so, owing to 
the tendency of the one to grant to the writer the 
fullest liberty of action, and the corresponding ten- 
dency of the other to restrict it within the narrowest 
possible limits. But they pertain rather to the freedom 
of the stage itself than to the methods of any par- 
ticular school. 

u 209 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

Shakespeare in consequence is only indirectly con- 
cerned in the controversies that went on in regard to 
these conventions. Unlike the doctrine of the unities, 
many, and perhaps all of them, were not fully formu- 
lated till after his time. Unlike, too, the mixture of 
the tragic and the comic, unlike the shedding of blood 
on the stage, their rejection or employment does not 
denote characteristic differences of the theatres of rival 
nations. They indicate a general trend of belief or 
action during particular periods rather than any estab- 
lished principles of dramatic conduct. But as these 
conventional rules had been uniformly disregarded by 
Shakespeare, it enabled those who paid no heed to 
them to use him as an authority for their opinion or 
practice. Hence in any account of the controversies 
which went on in regard to his dramatic art, it is neces- 
sary to pay them some consideration. They fall into 
two classes. One concerns the form in which the lan- 
guage of the play is clothed, the other the treatment 
of the subject. 

In regard to form a number of conventional rules 
came to be widely adopted. One of these was that 
different kinds of writing should not be employed in 
the same play. The mixture of prose and verse was 
as bad as regards manner as was the mixture of the 
humorous and the pathetic as regards matter. This 
was a canon so generally accepted and so regularly 
obeyed that it needs mention rather than exemplifi- 
cation. It was doubtless inevitable that it should 
undergo extension. This, at any rate, took place. It 
became the accepted creed that comedy must always 

210 



MINOR DRAMATIC CONVENTIONS 

be in prose, tragedy in blank verse. During the eigh- 
teenth century this rule was so firmly established that 
the occasional exceptions which occur are so occasional 
that they serve to emphasize the strictness with which it 
was enforced. Especially was this true of the introduc- 
tion into comedy either of blank verse or of ryme. The 
latter was an offence to which no quarter was shown. 
Chesterfield founded the reason of the rule upon the 
very nature of things. Comedy should represent mere 
common life and nothyig beyond. Its characters ac- 
cordingly should talk upon the stage just as they would 
in the street or the drawing-room. Hence ryme was 
inadmissible in it. He would not allow it, unless it 
was put into the mouth or came out of the mouth of 
a mad poet.^ Belief in realism, it will be seen, was 
just as potent in the eighteenth century as it has ever 
been since, though it did not clothe itself with that 
name. 

The view taken by Chesterfield was far from being 
exceptional. It may justly be said to represent not 
only the general belief but the general practice. Rarely 
was there any attempt to run counter to it. In 1784 
Hayley published three comedies in ryme. This author 
had somehow stumbled upon one of those incompre- 
hensible reputations which it is the fortune of a few 
to have for a time, and the despair of future gener- 
ations to explain how they came to have it. One of 
these comedies, entitled ' The Two Connoisseurs,' was 
brought out at the Haymarket the year of its appear- 
ance in print. The very nature of the attempt aroused 

1 Letter to his son, Jan. 23, 1752. 
211 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

curiosity. Colman wrote a prologue for it, to be re- 
cited by a performer in the character of Bays. In 
the course of it he was represented as saying that 
though he had written much, he had 

" Ne'er tried aught so low, or so sublime, 
As Tragedy in Prose, or Comedy iu Ryme." 

Hayley was then in the height of his factitious reputa- 
tion. The novelty of the performance awakened in- 
terest, and caused the play to be received with a certain 
measure of tolerance. But the success was not great 
enough to justify imitation. 

The feeling which sought to confine comedy to prose 
naturally did not content itself with the rejection of 
ryme. It frowned equally upon blank verse. In regard 
to this there was however no such unanimity of opinion ; 
and at a period when the plays of Shakespeare were con- 
stantly becoming more familiar to the whole world of 
readers, an exclusion of this measure could not always 
hold its ground unchallenged. In truth, what almost 
might be called an organized movement in its favor 
broke out among that group of old Westminster fellow- 
students whose names occur so frequently in the 
early story of Cowper's life. Three of them, George 
Colman, Bonnell Thornton, and Robert Lloyd, put them- 
selves in direct opposition to the prevailing sentiment. 
To the edition of Massinger which was published in 
1761, Colman furnished a preface. In it he denounced 
the use of ryme in comedy. Furthermore, though he 
did not deny the propriety of prose in works of this 
sort, he advocated in place of it the adoption of blank 
verse after the manner of the authors of the older Eng- 

212 



MINOR DRAMATIC CONVENTIONS 

lisli drama. His argument was based upon the ground 
that this measure, while representing with fidelity 
the words and acts of every-day life, was capable 
of rising easily to heights of expression above the 
range of ordinary conversation. It therefore gave 
the writer opportunity to exhibit his powers as a 
poet as well as a dramatist. He announced that 
in accordance with this view he was purposing to brino- 
out a version of Terence in familiar blank verse. If 
he failed, he was confident it would not be due to the 
unhappiness of the plan but to the poorness of the 
execution. Meanwhile the design had kindled the am- 
bition of his friend Thornton. In 1762 that writer pub- 
lished in the ' St. James's Magazine,' edited by Lloyd, 
a specimen of an intended translation of Plautus upon 
the same lines. ^ This called forth a whole series of 
articles from another scholar, who went farther than 
either Colman or Thornton in his defiance of the estab- 
lished opinion. He took the ground that not only 
should comedy be written in measui"e, but that it should 
never be written in prose.^ 

There were not many, however, who entertained 
these sentiments, still fewer who acted upon them. 
Examples of comedy, not written in prose, whether 
original or translated, are far from being numerous 
in the eighteenth century. Colman's version of Ter- 
ence was published in 1764. It met with the general 
approval of the classical scholars of the time. But 
there was occasionally heard a discordant note. It 

1 Vol. i. pp. 265-274 (Dec. 1762). 

2 St. James's Magazine, vol. i. pp. 384-392, etc. 

213 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

had been made in blank verse. It was felt by many 
that Colman had chosen an inappropriate vehicle for 
conveying the meaning of his original. More than 
a dozen years after — in 1777 — a translation of two 
comedies of this same Latin author was put forth in prose 
by a writer who signed himself simply a member of 
the university of Oxford. In his preface he praised 
Colman's version in many particulars, but took most 
decided exception to the " unnatural combination," as 
he termed it, of comedy and blank verse. His further 
criticism renders noticeable how all-important had be- 
come by this time the influence of Shakespeare's ex- 
ample, how profound was the deference paid to his 
authority. The writer in his contention that blank 
verse was adapted only to tragedy or to epic poetry, 
felt compelled to parry the force of the argument that 
could be drawn from the practice of the great dramatist, 
or rather to misrepresent it. He maintained that ' The 
Merchant of Venice ' and ' Measure for Measure ' were 
really tragedies. Therefore in them blank verse was 
allowable. On the other hand ' Much Ado about Noth- 
ing ' and ' The Merry Wives of Windsor ' were pure 
comedies. Therefore the}^ were almost entirely written 
in prose. A complete application of this rule would 
show that Shakespeare wrote hardly anything but trage- 
dies ; for in all of his pieces that go under the name 
of comedies, blank verse prevails to a greater or less 
extent, and is almost certain to be employed whenever 
the expression assumes a serious character. 

In this he followed the practice of his age. Blank 
verse, while generally employed in tragedy, had never 

214 



MINOR DRAMATIC CONVENTIONS 

been limited to it by the Elizabethans. With them 
it did not reach its position without a struggle. For a 
long time various sorts of measures were used side by- 
side. Quatrains, seven-line stanzas, eight-line stanzas, 
couplets of twelve and fourteen syllables are to be found 
along with the regular heroic verse, whether rymed or un- 
rymed. Some, and even many of them, appear inter- 
mingled in the same piece. The ' Promos and Cas- 
sandra ' of Whetstone is written in rymed couplets of 
ten, twelve, and fourteen syllables, with occasional use 
of blank verse. ' Selimus,' while principally in blank 
verse, has no small number of seven-line and eight- 
line stanzas. Both the ' Cleopatra ' and the ' Philotas ' 
of Daniel are written mainly in quatrains. Traces of 
several of these measures can be found in the earlier 
work of Shakespeare. Ryme appears in nearly every 
one of his plays ; and though the use of it he grad- 
ually laid aside, he cannot be said to have ever dis- 
carded it entirely. The same thing was true of those 
who were in the strictest sense his contemporaries. 
The rejection of other measures and the adoption 
of blank verse was a general movement in which, 
during the Elizabethan period, all writers for the 
stage shared to some extent. To employ the termi- 
nology of science, it was an evolution which took place 
and not a catastrophe. 

There is sufficient reason for the emergence to su- 
premacy of blank verse from this confusion of measures 
that for a while prevailed. No other form was found 
so effective. Its capacity for giving voice, with no 
sensible impairment of dignity, to the simplest state- 

215 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

ment of fact or to the easy language of conversation, 
and of passing at once from either of these, without the 
slightest perceptible strain, to the sublimest heights of 
thought or to the utterance of intensest passion, made 
it an instrument of expression which has never been 
surpassed for dramatic purposes, if it has ever been 
equalled. When its capabilities were fully revealed, 
as they were by Marlowe, its general adoption was 
inevitable. It was accepted, both then and afterward, 
as the recognized medium for the expression of all 
earnest speech. Once only was an attempt made to 
displace it from the position which it had acquired. 
It was during the reign of Charles II. that this occurred. 
Then a determined effort was put forth to substitute 
for it ryme. The matter became a subject of vehement 
controversy. The struggle in behalf of ryme was 
stoutly maintained for a while ; but when Dryden, 
its great champion, capitulated, and wrote ' All for 
Love ' in blank verse, its cause was felt to be lost. 
Though it did not die out immediately, its doom had 
been sealed. Henceforward there were few to say a 
word in its favor, and many to attack it as a gross 
impropriety. 

Unlike its original appearance, this later introduction 
of ryme had been due to French influence. It was that, 
too, which for a while maintained it. Later it was con- 
ceded, by those opposed to its use in the English drama, 
that there was justice in Voltaire's contention that in 
French ryme must be employed. To that language was 
denied what he at first was willing to call the happy 
liberty of blank verse. It was a tongue which would not 

216 



i 



MINOR DRAMATIC CONVENTIONS 

admit of inversions. The lines could not be made to run 
into one another. A mere caesura and a fixed number of 
feet would not be sufficient to distinguish poetry from 
prose. Therefore in Voltaire's opinion ryme was essen- 
tial to French tragedy and would be an ornament to 
French comedy.^ But no necessity of this sort existed 
in English ; hence the hostility manifested to ryme dur- 
ing the eighteenth century was carried to an extreme. 
Not even would Shakespeare's practice of intermingling 
it with blank verse have been tolerated in the work 
of a professed imitator. He himself was pardoned, be- 
cause, living in the unrefined age he did, he could not be 
expected to know better. But no privilege of this 
kind could be conceded to the writer of the under- 
standing ages which had followed. The union of prose 
and verse in the same play was as bad as anything 
could be; but the iniquity of indulgence in such a 
mixture hardly surpassed that of intermingling different 
kinds of verse. Addison declared himself to be very 
much offended when he saw a play in ryme. This 
he termed a solecism. But he found still more objec- 
tionable those plays which had some parts in rj^me and 
some in blank verse. These were really two different 
languages. He was willing to admit that the speaker 
at the very end of a scene might be permitted to take 
his departure with two or three couplets. Beyond that 
point he was unwilling to go.^ 

Blank verse became therefore sacred to tragedy. 
Critical opinion assumed that in this species of dra- 

1 Letter to Lord Bolingbroke, prefixed to Brutus. 

2 Spectator, No. 40, April 11, 1711. 

217 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

matic composition no other form of versification was 
permissible. If the employment in it of ryme met 
with disfavor, we can accordingly conceive something 
of the state of feeling that would be aroused by the 
use of prose. " Tragedy," said Chesterfield, " must 
be something bigger than life, or it would not affect 
us." In it the violent passions must not only speak, 
but furthermore they must speak with dignity. Hence 
the necessity of their being expressed in verse .^ Col- 
man in the prologue to Hayley's play, besides speaking 
of comedies in ryme, had also mentioned tragedies in 
prose. Few experiments of this latter kind were ever 
attempted; yet it is to be said that in at least two 
instances, when so written, they achieved notable suc- 
cess. The experiments of this nature belonged, however, 
to the tragic drama which dealt not with persons of 
high position, but with characters taken from a com- 
paratively low station in life. It was too venturesome 
for even the most reckless of playwrights to make a 
king or hero talk the humble language of prose. But 
with the personages coming from the middle class this 
liberty could be taken more safely. In 1731 Lillo brought 
out his domestic tragedy of ' George Barnwell.' It was 
in prose, though, it must be admitted, it was a sort of 
spurious prose. It had a measured movement ; it was 
full of inversions ; and a good deal of it could have been 
turned with little difficulty into passable blank verse. 
The success it achieved was so great that it continued 
to be acted for the rest of the century. But however 
popular with the public, it offended the critical frater- 

1 Letter to his son, Jan. 23, 1752. 
218 



MINOR DRAMATIC CONVENTIONS 

nity. This was partly due to its violation of the unities, 
but mainly to the form in which it had been put. The 
experiment Lillo never afterward cared, or at least 
never chose, to repeat, in spite of the success which 
his first venture had met. In 1740, about a year after 
his death, his play of ' Elmerick ' was produced. These 
words of its prologue bear witness to the fact that all 
other qualities of his most popular work had never 
entirely appeased critical fury : — 

" He knew no art, no rule ; but warmly thought 
From passion's force, and as he felt he wrote. 
His Barnwell once no critic's test could bear, 
Yet from each eye still draws the natural tear." 

The next successful piece of this kind was ' The 
Gamester' of Edward Moore. It was brought out in 
1753, and met with the greatest public favor. Though 
written in prose, there could be no question as to its 
being a tragedy. To that form of art which excluded 
the comic entirely its author was unswerving in his 
allegiance. From beginning to end there is little but 
misery, unrelieved by a single sally of wit, not even by 
a single diverting incident. It differed from Lillo's 
work in the obedience it paid to the unities, with the 
usual absurdity of crowding into twenty-four hours 
events which could hardly have taken place in twenty- 
four days. But this violation of the truth of life did 
not disturb the critics. It did not even occur to their 
minds. It was the way in which it was written which 
they found objectionable. All properly constituted 
persons of taste, it was asserted, regarded the use of 
prose as something altogether below the dignity of 

219 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

tragedy.^ Successful as the piece had been, it was not 
enough so to encourage imitation. This employment 
of prose involved therefore an additional risk which no 
playwright cared to run. Thirty years passed before 
any one ventured again upon so hazardous an under- 
taking. In 1783 Cumberland brought out his tragedy 
of ' The Mysterious Husband.' In it he too made use 
of the forbidden medium. That the course was felt to 
be fraught with danger is plain from the words of the 
prologue : — 

" Sad omen for our poet when he chose 
The narrow grovelling path of humble prose, 
A path indeed which Moore and Lillo trod, 
And reached Parnassus by the bridle road." 

Against the deference paid to these conventional rules 
Shakespeare's practice was a silent but perpetual pro- 
test. He had employed ryme and blank verse in his 
comedies. In so doing he had aggravated the original 
offence by the further crime of mingling the two in the 
same production. Into his tragedies he had introduced 
prose. Sometimes in the very same scene specimens 
of all these different methods of expression were to 
be found. The same characters occasionally passed 
from one to the other without the slightest hesita- 
tion. In truth, there was not a dramatic sin of which 
he had not been guilty. As his plays became more 
read and studied and acted, the sense of the enormity 
of these proceedings gradually waxed fainter with 
familiarity. For a long period, it is true, the opinion 

1 For example, see a long notice of the play in the ' Universal 
Magazine,' vol. xii. pp. 77-88 (1753). 

220 



MINOR DRAMATIC CONVENTIONS 

prevailed, sometimes even with his admirers, that 
the mixture of these various modes of expression 
in the same piece was merely another illustration of 
his wild and irregular genius. But in process of 
time it dawned upon the minds of men that these 
conventions concerned only the mechanism of the 
play ; they had little to do with its character as a work 
of art. This depended upon its effectiveness in pro- 
ducing properly the result at which the writer aimed. 
If a person reaches at the right moment the place he 
is seeking, it makes comparatively little difference 
whether he has travelled on foot, or on horseback, or 
in a chariot-and-four, or if he has adopted in turn 
each one of these modes of conveyance. The choice 
is largely a matter of convenience. Undoubtedly cer- 
tain mediums of expression are in themselves better 
suited to one kind of production than to another ; but 
it is the success in any given case that determines 
whether the particular one resorted to in it has been 
the best or not. Each can be so used as to cause 
offence; but that consists in the way it is employed, 
not in the fact of its employment. 

Controversies on points like these are taken up with 
the nature of the vehicle. There were others which 
concerned either the material which was sought to be 
conveyed, or its method of treatment. About these 
latter a number of conventional rules strove to find 
acceptance. In certain instances they gained it. They 
were frequently put forth in conformity to some fanci- 
ful theory which might or might not have the least 
relation to nature or truth. According as the work 

221 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

of the dramatist harmonized or failed to harmonize 
with the view adopted, it was adjudged right or 
wrong. One of the most important of these, the 
doctrine of poetical justice, belongs strictly to the 
controversy about the morality of the Shakespearean 
drama. At this place, therefore, it will merely receive 
mention and not treatment. Furthermore, the varia- 
tion from the classical precedent which goes under 
the name of domestic tragedy does not strictly come 
into any discussion of Shakespeare as a dramatic artist. 
With this sort of production, not uncommon in his 
time and perhaps even more common later, he did 
not concern himself. Though he brings men of low 
position into these pieces, his heroes are always of 
exalted station. In most of them they are either 
royal or connected with royalty. The apparent ex- 
ceptions are only apparent. Both Romeo and Juliet 
are representatives of great families whose strife has 
deluged the streets of an Italian city with blood. 
Othello is a renowned military leader. Timon, against 
whom most exception can be taken on this ground, 
is a man of highest social position, and allied in a 
way with the great historical personage who appears 
at the conclusion of the play as the conqueror of 
Athens. While Shakespeare's tragedies do not there- 
fore always conform to the classical practice of deal- 
ing with the fate of kings and the fortune of states, 
they do concern themselves invariably with persons 
of lofty station. In general this is also true even of 
his comedies. 'The Merry Wives of Windsor' and 
' The Taming of the Shrew ' are the only two of these 

222 



MINOR DRAMATIC CONVENTIONS 

in which persons of the dignity of rulers do not bear 
some part. 

Yet the belief in the necessity of confining tragedy 
as far as possible to royalty exercised some influence in 
the alterations which were made in Shakespeare's plays. 
But any effect wrought by it was slight in comparison 
with the extension given to the part love was made to 
fill. From the beginning this passion had been the 
staple of comedy. There, it was felt, was its legitimate 
province. But love with the Elizabethans had also 
invaded tragedy ; in France it subsequently made a 
complete conquest of it. On that stage no piece 
could succeed which did not contain it as a leading 
motive, if not the leading motive. If it were lacking, 
actors refused to play it, audiences refused to listen 
to it. From France, as we have seen, the practice was 
carried to England at the era of the Restoration, and 
came to occupy a prominent place in the transformations 
which Shakespeare's dramas were made to undergo. 
However much men might dislike the idea of thrust- 
ing the operation of this passion into every produc- 
tion, whether suitable to it or not, they conformed to 
the prevailing taste of the age in so doing. It was 
the general adoption of this practice by the French 
playwrights which led to love in tragedy being some- 
times considered an essential distinction between ro- 
manticism and classicism. Such it never really was. 
It could not be a distinction between the purely classi- 
cal drama and the romantic ; for the ancient tragedy 
did not deal in love between the sexes at all. It could 
not be a distinction between the French and the English 

223 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

tragedy; for both dealt in it more or less. There is 
just this slight foundation for the contention. It is 
to a certain extent a distinction between the stage of 
Corneille and Racine and that of Shakespeare, using 
Shakespeare as the representative of his period. Even 
there it is not a thorough-going distinction. It is so 
only to the extent that in the latter love was made 
the subject of tragedy occasionally; in the former it 
was made so habitually. 

So little, however, was the position given to the sub- 
ject of love regarded as a real distinction between the 
classical and the romantic drama that the practice of 
introducinof it on all occasions miet with as much dis- 
favor from many adherents of the former as it did 
from the stoutest upholders of the latter. True, this 
disfavor was in part due to the belief in certain con- 
ventional rules which had no foundation in nature, in 
reason, or in common sense. With the full operation 
of these rules love was supposed to interfere. Oppo- 
sition was therefore sometimes manifested to any intro- 
duction of it whatever. In the eyes of Ren^ Rapin, who 
in 1674 published reflections on Aristotle's 'Poetics,' 
modern tragedy had degenerated on this very account 
from the standard set by the ancients. Tragedy, he 
maintained, must always be invested with an heroic 
air. For that reason love is unsuitable to it. To him 
it seemed that there could be nothing more senseless 
and contemptible than for a man to spend his time 
whining about frivolous kindnesses, when he might be 
making himself an object of admiration by great and 
noble thoughts and sublime expressions. It shows, 

224 



MINOR DRAMATIC CONVENTIONS 

nevertheless, how strong was the sentiment in favor of 
the course he condemned that Rapin recognized and 
confessed that his was but a solitary voice which was 
lifted up against established usage. 

But if the practice annoyed Rapin the critic, it irri- 
tated Voltaire the dramatist almost beyond endurance. 
Protests against it abound in the introductions to his 
tragedies. Our stage is filled with nothing but gal- 
lantry and intrigue, he wrote in the preface to his 
Rome Sauvee. Nobody with us enters into conspira- 
cies, but everybody is in love. He reiterated his opinion 
in the dissertation prefixed to his Semiramis. Love 
and gallantry have almost ruined the French theatre, 
was his cry. He had told us previously how great 
had been his annoyance and indignation, when he of- 
fered CEdipe to the stage in 1718, to find that he could 
not get it acted because it contained nothing of that 
passion. The actresses laughed at him when they dis- 
covered there were no scenes of tenderness in which 
they could display their powers. So he tells us he 
was compelled to spoil his play by putting in some 
love-passages in a piece in which they had no business. 
Rapin's feelings, which differed only in degree from 
those of Voltaire, were reflected in Rapin's English 
translator, Rymer, This writer was the most ardent 
upholder of both the theory and the practice of the 
ancient drama. It was because love did not appear 
there that he was led to regard it as unsuitable to 
the stage. Dennis did not altogether agree with his 
fellow-critic in his demand for the complete exclusion 
of this passion. Yet he denounced the introduction 
15 225 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

of love-scenes in Addison's ' Cato,' partly, to be sure, 
because of their insipidity, but also because they were 
utterly foreign to the actual interests of the play.^ 
Critical opinion in England pretty generally condemned 
the practice ; yet it had but little influence upon usage. 
As late as 1753 Joseph Warton complained that love, 
by totally engrossing the theatre, had contributed to de- 
grade that noble school into an academy of effeminacy.^ 
The introduction of love into tragedy is important 
to us, because of the prominence of the part it played 
in the alterations of Shakespeare. But it cannot fairly 
be imputed to the classicists, though it had established 
itself completely upon their stage. It was, however, by 
those belonging to their school that a number of other 
doctrines were propounded at the era of the Restora- 
tion in order to meet fully the requirements of poetical 
art. Some of these can hardly be considered anything 
more than the expression of personal opinion ; others 
there were which had a good deal of vogue, and affected 
to no small extent the practice of the dramatists of tlie 
time. They were, furthermore, made tests to try the 
merits of Shakespeare. The reader of the critical lit- 
erature of the period following the Restoration gets 
tired beyond measure at the constant gabble about the 
poetic art, — what it demands, what it disallows. He 
finds wearisome beyond endurance the persistent harp- 
ing upon Aristotle's assertion that the design of tragedy 
is to inspire pity or terror; the regular examination 
of every play in order to ascertain whether or not it 

1 Kemarks upon Cato. 

2 Adventurer, No. 113, Dec. 4, 1753. 

226 



i 



MINOR DRAMATIC CONVENTIONS 

has been successful in exciting one or both of those 
emotions. In all the controversies about these various 
points the historiographer, Thomas Rymer, who has 
already been mentioned, bore a conspicuous part. He 
was largely responsible for the acceptance of some of 
the views then promulgated, so far as they were ac- 
cepted at all. Of one or two he may have been the 
originator. For these reasons, as well as for his atti- 
tude toward Shakespeare, it is necessary to give some 
account of him as a man and a critic. 

Fortunately for his reputation Rymer is now known 
to us mainly as the compiler of the documents which 
go under the name of 'Foedera.' The diligence and 
zeal he displayed in collecting this mass of historical 
material has always found its due meed of praise. But 
to his contemporaries he was known almost wholly as 
a critic. ^ About his qualifications for exercising the 
duties of this calling, as well as for the success which 
he met in its pursuit, widely conflicting opinions have 
been entertained. The generally received modern view 
has been expressed by Macaulay with his usual energy, 
or, as some hold, with his usual over-emphasis. Accord- 

^ A most singular error is found in the memoir of Rymer, which 
was prefixed by Sir Thomas Duffus Hardy to the Syllabus of the 
documents contained in the ' Foedera.' published in 1869. In that an 
extract, under the title of ' The Garreteer Poet,' was printed as a speci- 
men of the bitter feeling entertained and exhibited towards Rymer per- 
sonally. The passage in question is an extract from one of the chap- 
ters in a novel called ' The History of Pompey the Little,' written by 
Francis Coventry, and first published in 1751. It is a picture of the 
misery and squalor in which poor authors lived at that time. The 
character is designated as " Mr. Rhymer, the poet ; " but it has nothing 
whatever to do with Rymer, the critic, who had been dead about forty 
years. 

227 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

ing to him, Rymer was the worst critic that ever lived. 
Even those who regard him most contemptuously might 
naturally hesitate to accord to one alone, out of the 
multitude of aspirants, the right to the occupancy of 
this particular throne. Still, there is no question that 
he possessed qualities which ailord no small justification 
for the claim Macaulay set up in his behalf. To in- 
competency of appreciation he joined peculiar wretched- 
ness of expression. To make use of one of his own 
phrases, " for tongue and wind " ^ he never had a rival. 
His methods of criticism were very much of the nature 
of those with which purists have made us all familiar in 
judging of the correctness of usage. He first laid 
down dogmatically certain rules for deciding upon the 
merits of the work he was considering. Whether these 
rules were right or wrong was a detail which did not 
engage his attention. He announced them, he tried 
everybody by them. According as men conformed to 
them or failed to conform, they were adjudged inno- 
cent or guilty. 

To Rymer belonged one characteristic which some 
seem to regard as the crowning qualification of a critic. 
He was entirely devoid of literary taste. The danger 
of having it is patent. Its possessor may be tempted 
to entertain and even express a high opinion of what 
the rules he has adopted teach him he ought to dis- 
approve. This was something liable to exert at times 
a baleful influence over the best-intentioned judges, 
who had fortified themselves against such misleading 
admiration by a thorough mastery of the principles of 
1 Tragedies of the Last Age, p. 44. 
228 



MINOR DRAMATIC CONVENTIONS 

art. There is a remarkable confession of this sort by 
Gildon, much learned in the critical jargon of the time. 
"In spite of his known and visible errors," he said, 
" when I read Shakespeare, even in some of his most 
irregular plays, I am surprised into a pleasure so great, 
that my judgment is no longer free to see the faults, 
though they are ever so gross and evident. There is 
such a witchery in him, that all the rules of art which 
he does not observe, though built on an equally solid 
and infallible reason, as entirely vanish away in the 
transports of those that he does observe, as if I had 
never known anj-thing of the matter." ^ 

Rymer never fell a prey to feelings of this nature. 
From any temptation to swerve from the plain path of 
critical duty by the operation of literary taste he always 
remained perfectly free. In the preface to his trans- 
lation of Rapin he gave an account of English epic 
poetry. Spenser was the first author considered in con- 
nection with it. To him Rymer accorded a qualified 
praise. He possessed genius for heroic poetry ; unfor- 
tunately, he lacked a true idea of it. Hence in his 
matter he had been misled by following Ariosto as a 
guide, and in his manner by adopting a stanza which 
is in no wise proper for our tongue. The only two 
other examples he found to make the subject of com- 
ment were the ' Davideis ' of Cowley and the ' Gondi- 
bert ' of D'Avenant. There was not even an allusion to 
' Paradise Lost, ' though it had already passed into 
its second edition in the very year in which Rapin 's 

1 Essay on the Art, Rise, and Progress of the Stage (1710), in edition 
of Shakespeare, 1728, vol. x. p. 3, 

229 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

work appeared in France. Later the increasing vogue 
of this epic compelled him to mention it. This he 
did at the end of the volume containing a castiga- 
tion of a few of Beaumont and Fletcher's plays. 
There he promised another work which should deal 
with certain popular dramas of the previous age. It 
was also to contain, he assured his readers, " reflections 
on that ' Paradise Lost ' of Milton's which some are 
pleased to call a poem." This last promise or threat was 
never fulfilled. The loss to criticism can be endured ; 
the loss to harmless gayety is irreparable. Further- 
more, Rymer's want of taste in appreciation had 
its complement in an equivalent want of taste in ex- 
pression. His critical efforts bear throughout the 
marks of literary vulgarity. He wrote in a violent style 
under the impression that it was vigorous. He con- 
stantly indulged in coarse phrases which, because they 
were coarse, he deemed idiomatic. It was probably his 
only method of saving himself from being tedious. A 
noisy drunkard may be disagreeable, but he is not dull. 
Specimens of what is really little more than foul- 
mouthed railing will force themselves upon the atten- 
tion in the account, to be given later, of his attack 
upon Shakespeare. Yet, as a foretaste of their char- 
acter, it may be well to cite his description of the 
way in which Amintor is described in ' The Maid's 
Tragedy.' "All the passions in him," he wrote, 
"work so awkwardly, as if he had sucked a sow."^ 

But, however little worth consideration Rymer may 
now be conceded to have been in himself, in the history 

1 Tragedies of the Last Age, p. 127. 
230 



1 



MINOR DRAMATIC CONVENTIONS 

of critical controversy he has always to be reckoned 
with for what he was thought to be by others. There 
can be no denying the influence he wielded in the clos- 
ing years of the seventeenth century. Undoubtedly 
there were many of his contemporaries who estimated 
his views at their real value. But we have to look the 
fact in the face that his opinions were then usually 
cited with deference, and that, when controverted, it 
was done with a certain uneasiness, as if it partook of 
the nature of a venturesome proceeding. Nor has the 
regard paid to his authority been limited to the men of 
his own age. According to Spence, he was declared by 
Pope to be "on the whole one of the best critics we 
ever had." He was mentioned with respect by Walter 
Scott as having been one of those who produced by 
his writings a more than salutary influence upon the 
drama. ^ By Hallam he was treated with consideration, 
though he confessed to having read but one of his 
works, and that, it is clear, he had read very care- 
lessly. ^ With such credentials as these, the views he 
expressed must receive a certain amount of considera- 
tion from the student of literary history. It is a de- 
plorable necessity. The estimation in which Rymer 
was held by many during his lifetime, the high or 
at least respectful opinion expressed of him by emi- 
nent men who lived long after his death, tend to make 
one distrustful of anything and everything which goes 
under the name of criticism. 

There were two things which contributed to Rymer's 

1 Essay on the Drama (1814), in Chandos Classics ed., p. 213. 
' Literature of Europe, part iv., ch. 7. 
231 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

repute in his own day. One was his reputation for 
learning. So far as literature pure and simple is con- 
cerned, it was out of all proportion to his real acquire- 
ments. In that it was neither varied nor profound. 
But however limited his knowledge, that of the persons 
with whom he consorted was much less. He had fallen 
upon a time in which few of his contemporaries could 
be accounted scholars in the subjects in which he pro- 
nounced his decisions magisterially. Here was a man 
who could talk familiarly not only about Greek and 
Latin, but about Old French and Provengal and Italian 
authors. Those who knew nothing of these latter were 
not likely to question any misinformation in regard to 
them which he cared to impart. Upon the men of his 
time his self-confidence and his dogmatism not unnat- 
urally made a great impression. They honestly looked 
up to him as an authority. Nor, as an element in his 
success, can we afford to overlook the effect wrought by 
the violence and abusiveness with which he delivered 
his judgments. It is wonderful to observe how often 
and how well ill-nature will supply the place of brains. 
Rymer's bad temper brought him a consideration and 
respect which his unaided intellect could never have 
secured. 

It shows indeed how much the repute of learning can 
make up for the lack of real insight and all genuine 
appreciation that Rymer's critical essays, which were 
only saved from being intolerably dull by their exceed- 
ing ferocity, imposed even upon the manly understand- 
ing of Dryden. It was partly to the countenance which 
he received from this author, who as a literary judge 

232 



MINOR DRAMATIC CONVENTIONS 

was really great, however unequal, that much of the in- 
fluence which he exerted was due. To a certain extent 
it was a case of reciprocal flattery. In the preface to his 
translation of Rapin, Rymer had paid a tribute of adu- 
lation to the most eminent man of letters among his 
contemporaries. He had selected for comparison a de- 
scription of night taken from the Greek of Apollonius, 
the Latin of Vergil, the Italian of Tasso and of Marini, 
the French of Chapelain and of Le Moyne. From Dry- 
den he took a few lines from ' The Conquest of Mexico. ' 
In these Rymer asserted that the English poet had out- 
done all his rivals. "Here," said he, "is something 
more fortunate than the boldest fancy has yet reached, 
and something more just than the severest reason has 
observed. Here are the flights of Statins and Marino, 
tempered with a more discerning judgment, and the 
judgment of Virgil and Tasso animated with a more 
sprightly wit." This is very silly criticism, for the 
lines thus exalted, while respectable, are not in the 
least remarkable. But Dryden would have been more 
than human, had he not treated with tenderness a 
writer who had not only gone out of his way to praise 
him, but had ranked him higher than Vergil and Tasso. 
Still his respect for the acquirements of his panegyrist 
was unquestionably genuine. " Judicious " was the 
term he more than once applied to his observations. 
To him he was "our learned Mr. Rymer;" and he 
paid a deference to his opinions which now impairs 
the deference we pay to his own. 

Rymer's critical views upon the drama were first 
communicated to the world in a treatise, published in 

233 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

1678, which was entitled ' The Tragedies of the Last 
Age considered and examined by the practice of the 
ancients and the common sense of all ages.' He set 
out in this to devote himself to the six then most ap- 
plauded productions of the Elizabethan stage. He 
actually did not get much further than a discussion of 
the merits of three plays of Beaumont and Fletcher. 
From the work we can gather, however, a pretty defi- 
nite conception of the opinions he held. It hardly need 
to be said that he was an ardent upholder of the rules. 
It was a matter of course that he should advocate the 
unities and disapprove of the intermixture of comedy and 
tragedy and the shedding of blood. But he was far from 
being satisfied with limitations of this limited nature. 
He devised a number of other restrictions, or at least 
brought them to the attention of men, which were 
designed to add to the decorum of the stage. One, to 
which reference has already been made, is the doctrine 
of poetic justice. In regard to this he was particu- 
larly emphatic. But there were several other rules for 
the conduct of the drama upon which he laid stress; 
and these deserve mention as evidence of the sort 
of ideas that were prevalent at the time, even when 
they apparently received the sanction of no one but 
himself. 

Rymer's father had been hanged for treason shortly 
after the Restoration. The son seems to have felt it 
incumbent on him to make up for the parental derelic- 
tion by the extravagance of the views he took as to 
what was due to the head of the state. The feelings 
he expressed may or may not have been exhibited by 

234 






MINOR DRAMATIC CONVENTIONS 

him in his personal conduct; but in the theoretical 
conduct of the drama he carried loyalty to the highest 
pitch of devotion. He insisted upon the applicability 
to poetry of the political maxim that the king can do 
no wrong. He drew a marked distinction between 
monarchs as exhibited by the historian and by the play- 
wright. If such personages were weak and bad in real 
life, they must not be so represented in letters. His- 
tory may know of feeble kings, of vicious kings ; but to 
such in the drama, Rymer tells us that Aristotle cries 
shame. 1 Poetry will allow no such unbecoming treat- 
ment of the Lord's anointed. Though it is not neces- 
sary that all the heroes of tragedy should be of the class 
of rulers, all rulers of tragedy must be heroes. It was 
a prerogative inviolably attached to the crown, which 
neither a poet nor a parliament of poets had the right 
to invade. He carried this doctrine to the farthest 
extreme in its applications. A king, so far from being 
criminal, cannot be accessary to a crime. ^ Naturally 
the Elizabethan dramatists would suffer condemnation 
under the working of this principle. For plays so 
flagrantly violating it as ' Richard III. ' and ' Macbeth, ' 
it was demanding too much of Rymer to take the 
trouble to express the contempt which he unquestion- 
ably felt. The tragedies of Beaumont and Fletcher, 
directly under his consideration, gave him all the op- 
portunity for censure he needed. In this particular he 
contrasted the stage of England under a monarch much 
to its disadvantage, with the stage of Athens under a 
democratic government. The latter made its kings 

1 Tragedies of the Last Age, p. 47. ^ Ibid. p. 115. 

235 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

unfortunate and to be pitied; the former made them 
wicked and to be cursed and abhorred. ^ 

It was one of the inferences drawn by Rymer from 
the respect which must always be paid to theatrical 
propriety, that according to it no private man, still less 
a subject, could dramatically kill a king and preserve 
decorum. 2 To the absolute universality of this rule 
he allowed two exceptions. A good sound Christian 
might be permitted without offence to make way with a 
heathen monarch, who, in truth, by being a heathen, 
was little better than a dog. Again, a private English 
hero could be permitted to overcome in combat the king 
of a rival nation. In both these instances there was 
sufficient partiality to be presumed in the audience on 
the ground of religion and patriotism to justify such 
deviations from the strict principles of poetic propriety. 
It is right to add that this deference to monarchs was 
no more than an extension of the general rule that no 
person could be suffered to deal death to another on the 
stage, unless the rank of both was such that in real life 
the laws of the duello would permit them to meet in 
mortal combat.^ At least a man could not deal death 
to one above him; to slay an inferior was at worst a 
peccadillo. But no servant could slay his master; 
hence we can see how much more would dramatic pro- 
priety be outraged by a subject killing his liege lord. 
The conduct of Cornwall in ' King Lear ' would be 
conceded to be revolting, morally; but it could not 
compare in artistic hideousness with that of his ser- 

1 Tragedies of the Last Age, p. 29. 
a Ibid. p. 117. » Ibid. 

236 



MINOR DRAMATIC CONVENTIONS 

vant, who engages him in combat and wounds him 
mortally. 

Not merely must he be possessed of masculine vanity, 
but thrice must he be armed with desperate daring, who 
at the present day should venture to put forth a further 
amplification of this rule which Rymer then fearlessly 
enounced. In poetry, he tells us, no woman is to be 
permitted to kill a man unless her superiority of station 
is sufficient to counterbalance her inferiority of sex.^ 
In truth, the laws of the drama, as set forth by its then 
leading expounders, were very strict on the subject of 
female propriety. The distinguishing characteristic of 
woman, according to Rymer, is modesty; and therefore 
tragedy cannot properly represent her as being without 
that quality. Although he maintains an air of reserve 
as to the truth of the asserted fact, Rymer fortifies the 
position he takes on this point by a reference to what 
some writers of natural history have reported, which 
is that "women when drowned swim with their faces 
downwards, though men on the contrary. "^ This es- 
tablishes, beyond question, the principle that modesty 
must be regarded as an essential characteristic of the 
female sex. Accordingly, if one of their number has 
chanced to get "any accidental historic impudence," 
as Rymer phrases it, she must cease to stalk in trag- 
edy and pack off instead to comedy.^ In truth, woman 
had a pretty hard time of it at the hands of the 
apostles of the pure principles of art. Not merely was 
her right to be wicked and immodest questioned; her 

1 Tragedies of the Last Age, p. 117. 

2 Ibid. p. 113. 3 Ibid. p. 114, 

237 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

liberty of action in more decorous ways was restricted. 
Thus Gildon tells us that in drawing the manners in 
the drama they ought always to be made agreeable to the 
character. This requires every member of the female 
sex to be depicted as destitute of valor: for valor, 
though a moral virtue, is a masculine one ; it does not 
belong to a woman, who ought neither to be bold nor 
valiant. 1 Furthermore, she must not be credited with 
abstruse knowledge, " which the ladies are by no means 
esteemed capable of."^ 

Much more had Rymer to say of what the poetic art 
required and what it forbade. All through his work 
are scattered reflections which are anything but the 
result of reflection. He invariably laid down the law 
with an assurance equal to the assurance with which 
we can reject it. But his views, if not worthy of ac- 
ceptance, are worthy of mention ; for they are those of 
a man whom his age regarded as one of the most 
judicious, if not the greatest of critics. Accordingly 
here will be given a statement of all of any importance, 
in addition to those already indicated or described. 
They are briefly as follows. Tragedy requires not only 
what is natural, but what is great in nature. Both 
matter and expression must be in consonance with the 
thoughts and feelings which high position and court- 
education might inspire. 3 The malefactors of this 
species of the drama must be of a better sort than those 
usually found among the living ; for an obdurate, impu- 
dent, and impenitent malefactor can neither move pity 

1 Complete Art of Poetry, vol. i. p. 247. * Ibid. p. 250. 
8 Tragedies of the Last Age, p. 43. 
238 



MINOR DRAMATIC CONVENTIONS 

nor terror. 1 Poetry will allow no provocation in injury 
where it allows no revenge. It will permit no affront 
where there can be no reparation. ^ When a sword is 
once drawn, the scabbard must be thrown away. There 
is no abandoning what is once designed until it be thor- 
oughly effected. Tragedy is no place for cowards, nor 
for giddy fellows, nor for bullies with their squabbles.^ 
Furthermore, if actions morally unnatural, if strange 
events are to be represented as happening, they must be 
duly foretold by signs and portents. Heaven and earth 
must be in disorder ; nature must be troubled ; unheard of 
prodigies must occur ; spirits must rise from the dead and 
breathe forth cursing and slaughter.* Rules like these 
are specimens of the inanities which, according to Scott, 
produced a more than salutary influence upon the stage. 
In one respect Rymer treated fairly the men he criti- 
cised. He set out to illustrate his faith by his works. 
His volume commenting upon the tragedies of the last 
age bore an advertisement to the effect that shortly 
would be published an heroic play of his own under 
the title of ' Edgar, or the English Monarch. ' In due 
time the work appeared. Scott has told us that both 
Rymer and Dennis were ill-advised enough to attempt 
themselves to write for the stage, and thereby proved 
most effectually that it was possible for a drama to be 
extremely regular, and at the same time intolerably 
dull. The observation leads one to suspect that Scott 
had never read the works he compared. The plays of 
Dennis, like most of those of his time, may justly 

1 Tragedies of the Last Age, p. 36. 2 ibjd. p. 126. 

8 Ibid. p. 135. 4 Ibid. p. 22. 

239 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

enough be termed dull, though two or three of them 
met with a fair degree of success. But that adjective 
is altogether too respectable an epithet to apply to the 
single production which Rymer wrote. Were it merely 
dull, it might take its place by the side of hundreds 
of pieces produced in strictest conformity to what 
was called art. The student of the English drama, 
especially from the Restoration onward, has to wade 
through a mass of worthless works, but he will find 
none poorer in plot and wretcheder in execution than 
Rymer's ' Edgar. ' It is not mediocre : it is mean. It 
is a rymed heroic tragedy, and Dryden had caused this 
species of dramatic production to be liked by many and 
to be made tolerable to all by the excellence of his 
versification. But in ' Edgar ' the meanness of the 
matter is only exceeded by the meanness of the manner. 
It is a ryming play, and no small proportion of its so- 
called rymes cannot properly be said to ryme at all. 
It furthermore abounds in rugged and halting lines. 
In truth, its sixty-three pages contain more execrable 
rymes and splayfoot verse — to use Pope's phrase — 
than any similar production in our literature written by 
an author of the least pretension whatsoever. 

No one has ever been found, so far as I can discover, 
to speak a word in commendation of this play, which 
no one, furthermore, ever thought it worth while to 
bring out on the stage. But the frailty of human 
nature is shown in the fact that in writing it Rymer 
found himself unable to live up to the rigor of his own 
precepts. Into an heroic play he perhaps had to intro- 
duce love ; this, at all events, he did on a grand scale. 

240 



MINOR DRAMATIC CONVENTIONS 

But he certainly sinned against what he deemed light 
by permitting a woman to perpetrate a murder, even 
though it was done decorously behind the scenes. But 
the failure of his work to interest, its inability to excite 
any other feelings than those of ennui or derision, did 
not discredit the doctrines of its author with the par- 
tisans of his school. Art is true, they would say, 
however much its champions cast reproach upon it in 
their efforts to illustrate it. The doctrine, in par- 
ticular, that the hero of a tragedy must never be por- 
trayed as a feather-head or a reprobate, especially 
when that hero is a monarch, found ready acceptance 
in days when the duty of passive obedience was 
preached from every loyal pulpit. It received on more 
than one occasion the sanction of Dryden. The effect 
of this belief can be traced not only in original pieces, 
but in the alterations that were made of Shakespeare's 
plays. Tate, in his version of 'Richard II.,' informs 
us in his dedicatory epistle that he has modified the 
action of the monarch, as depicted in the earlier work, 
in order to make it conform to Mr. Rymer's theory that 
kings are always to be presumed heroes. 

We do not need to be told now that all such rules, 
propounded for the enforcement of dramatic propriety, 
when not merely personal conceits, are nothing but arti- 
ficial conventions. In devising them there was no 
thought of attempting to bring about a genuine por- 
trayal of life. Their inception was due in the first 
instance to French influence ; though the English writ- 
ers, following the manner of all imitators, were con- 
stantly disposed to better the instructions of their 
16 241 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

masters. There is, however, another movement to be 
considered, which owed its origin largely to the admi- 
ration felt for the ancient Greek drama. The modern 
stage, even when it was most regardful of the rules, 
had fallen into decay, it was said, in consequence 
of its being given up to gallantry and intrigue in its 
matter, with the artificial and complicated situations 
thereby caused. There was one way to restore it to its 
ancient simplicity and purity and pathos. This was to 
revive the chorus. It was the chorus in its genuine 
Greek sense that was contemplated, — that is, a body 
of persons who actually take part in the play, com- 
menting upon what is passing before their eyes, 
expressing opinion and giving advice. This is some- 
thing altogether distinct from the character who as- 
sumes that title in the Elizabethan drama. There 
it is a personage like Time in ' The Winter's Tale ' 
or Gower in ' Pericles, ' who comes forward to announce 
to the audience what they may expect to hear and 
behold in the scenes about to be played. That duty 
done, he retires and takes no further share in the 
action. Even in the tragedies formed upon the Senecan 
model, the chorus is no chorus in the Greek sense. 
While it adopts the lyric form for its utterance, it 
plays no necessary part in the drama, and confines 
itself to the utterance of instructive moral reflections 
between the acts. It is this limitation which kept 
Jonson from making any attempt to introduce it into 
his ' Se janus. ' No one, he said, — not even those who 
had most affected laws, — had reproduced it in real- 
ity. This opinion, however, did not prevent him from 
adopting it later in his ' Catiline.' 

242 



4 



MINOR DRAMATIC CONVENTIONS 

Every one, indeed, who was free from the glamour 
wrought by classical antiquity saw the uselessness of 
the attempt to give a second life to what was so thor- 
oughly dead. But in the learned, as opposed to what 
may be called the lay world, there was always a longing 
to restore this characteristic of the Greek drama. Its 
revival was a dream constantly cherished. Milton car- 
ried the dream into realization. But his ' Samson 
Agonistes ' was avowedly never intended for the stage, 
and its form and spirit are too alien to modern tastes 
to permit it to meet there with genuine success. Still 
scholars continued to cling to the Greek drama and to 
hold up its methods as the ideal to be kept in view. 
They were not disposed to take account of differences 
wrought by time, by custom, by taste. Roscommon 
complained that since dramatic poetry had lost its 
chorus it had lost at least half of its verisimility and 
greatest ornament, rendering modern tragedy no more 
than the shadow of the ancient.^ This same belief 
gained about the same time a certain sway in France, 
and to some extent affected the action of its then 
greatest living dramatist. In his Esther and Athalie 
Racine introduced the chorus. His action in so doing 
was hailed in England as the dawn of a better day. 
Rymer expressed himself rapturously over the results 
that would follow from the general adoption of the 
practice. What reformation, he exclaimed, might not 
be expected, now that the most necessary part of trag- 
edy has resumed its rightful place. Time and place 
shall no longer be juggled with, he added; and as the 
1 Note on line 193 of Horace's ' Art of Poetry ' (1681). 
243 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

chorus itself constitutes a goodly show, there will be 
no need of running after toys and hobby horses foreign 
to the subject in order to humor the multitude.^ 

But on this point Rymer's views encountered oppo- 
sition. His fellow-critic, Dennis, at once attacked his 
position, not only with vigor, but with a line of reason- 
ing which was not easy to meet successfully. ^ In his 
opinion not only was the chorus unnecessary to the 
modern stage, it was improper. If the Greek method 
and the Greek tragedy were to be set up in England, 
it would be requisite to introduce not only their reli- 
gion and their polity but also their climate. To a 
modern audience the spectacle of a chorus singing and 
dancing upon every terrible and moving event would 
not only seem unnatural, but would be actually ridicu- 
lous. Dennis went farther. He attacked the ancient 
drama itself for the existence in it of that very body 
of performers which it was pretended would add to 
the perfection of the modern drama. He specifically 
censured the absurdity which its presence had imparted 
to the ' Electra ' of Sophocles. In the fourth act of 
that tragedy Orestes discovers himself and his design 
to his sister in the sight and hearing of the chorus. 
Accordingly he intrusts a secret, upon which his rule 
and life depend, to the faith of sixteen women. It 
was not the only criticism of this kind which was 
brought against masterpieces of the Greek stage. Ros- 
common, for instance, had previously found fault with 
two plays of Euripides for precisely the same rea- 

1 Short View of Tragedy, p. 1. 
a In 'The Impartial Critick' (1693). 
244 



MINOR DRAMATIC CONVENTIONS 

son.i About a century after we find Walpole repeating 
the objection. "This mob of confidents," said he, "are 
the unnatural excrescences of a drama whose faults are 
admired as much as its excellences. With all the 
difference of Grecian and French and English manners, 
it is impossible to conceive that Phaedra trusted her 
incestuous passion and Medea her murderous revenge 
to a whole troop of attendants." 

Objections of this sort produced no effect upon clas- 
sical scholars. Dr. Francklin, in his ' Dissertation on 
Ancient Tragedy,' a sort of supplement to his trans- 
lation of Sophocles, advocated the restoration of the 
chorus. So did Hurd in the notes to his edition of 
the Ars Poetica of Horace. Still these were purely 
academic opinions. No one thought of carrying them 
into practice. At least, if any one did, his enthusiasm 
was speedily cooled by the chilling reception the pro- 
posal met from those who cared more for the taste of 
the public than for the prejudices of classical scholars. 
If an author did not have the sense to see that it was 
about as feasible to revive the old Greeks themselves 
as the form of their tragedy, he could rely upon having 
his eyes opened by the men who would have to 
bear the cost of this artificial product. In 1734 
'Junius Brutus,' a play taken by William Duncombe 
from the Brutus of Voltaire, was brought out at Drury 
Lane. In the preface to the piece, as printed, its 
adapter told us that he had, at the instance of some 
learned friends, purposed choruses for the play, after 
the manner of the ancients. But he found no disposi- 

1 Note to line 200 of Horace's ' Art of Poetry.' 
245 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

tion in the managers of the theatre to go to the expense 
of such an undertaking. Accordingly he had been 
obliged to drop the design. Few there were, however, 
who entertained any thought of thus appealing to the 
public. On the contrary, those who wrote plays after 
the Greek fashion professed, like Milton, that they 
never intended them for stage representation. 

This was true of the most noted attempt of the kind 
made in the eighteenth century.^ It was the work of 
Mason. The reputation which this writer enjoyed after 
the death of Gray is almost as inexplicable as that ac- 
quired by Hayley, who was his fervent admirer. There 
was little limit to the praise showered upon him by the 
leading critical periodicals of his day. Dissenters there 
were, it is true ; but their voice was scarcely heard in 
the chorus of applause with which his efforts were gen- 
erally greeted. He was constantly called a great poet. 
He was not unfrequently mentioned in terms which 
would not have been inapplicable to Vergil. After his 
two dramas appeared he was more specifically styled 
Britain's Sophocles. Not a work he produced, no mat- 
ter how dull, — and in the production of dull works he 
achieved some most notable successes, — but was spoken 
of with respect by almost everybody, and in some 
quarters was welcomed with acclamation. The classi- 
cal scholar, Glasse, translated into Greek his ' Carac- 
tacus.' For his presumption in so doing he suffered a 
merited rebuke. "How can any additional embellish- 

1 The only other play of this period, aiming to reproduce anything 
of the form and manner of Greek tragedy, which I have chanced to 
meet any account of, is a dramatic poem by John Sargent, published 
in 1785, and entitled 'The Mine.' 

246 



MINOR DRAMATIC CONVENTIONS 

merits," wrote the indignant reviewer, " be expected to 
heighten the beauties of a performance, where strength 
of reason unites with the boldest flights of imagination ; 
where elevation of sentiment and brilliancy of expres- 
sion are conspicuous in the most eminent degree, and 
reflect a mutual light to adorn each other? "^ Similar 
outbursts of admiration for the felicity and splendor 
which characterized this chaste and noble model, as it 
was declared to be, of the Greek drama, can be found 
in profusion. It is not the only time in the history 
of letters that the whistle of a tin-trumpet has been 
mistaken for the blast of a clarion. It was a saying 
of Aristotle that the mass of men are better judges of 
music and poetry than a small number of them, how- 
ever eminent. Mason's fortunes furnish an additional 
proof to the many that exist of the justice of this 
dictum, rightly understood. All the glorification of 
his poetry by the select few could never make him 
really popular. He had a thin vein of satire which 
brought him for a time some genuine success. Even 
that was a soil which was speedily exhausted; while 
the false glitter of his other verse, which won him 
reputation with the critics, never imposed upon the 
reading multitude. The public that admired Gray 
could never be induced to accept Gray's imitator. 

It was about the middle of the eighteenth century 
that Mason brought out one of those inane imitations of 
the Greek drama, which men at times painfully per- 
suade themselves that they admire. Compared with 
the glowing original, they have the pallor, the smileless- 

1 Critical Review, vol. Ivii. p. 1, Jan. 1784. 
247 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

ness of a corpse, and give the general impression of 
possessing about the same amount of vitality. This 
particular one Mason called ' Elf rida. ' He not only 
took care that it should not infringe upon the most 
unimportant of the proprieties of the classical drama, but 
he furnished it also with a chorus of the most approved 
pattern. It was published in 1752. To it he prefixed a 
series of letters to an unnamed and doubtless imaginary- 
correspondent. Him he raised up for the sake of putting 
into his mouth objections to the course he had taken, 
in order to provide them with a reply. In these letters 
all the ineptitudes of the classicists were repeated, and 
sometimes in a peculiarly offensive way. What Mason 
told us of the views of others is, however, much more 
important than any of his own which he took occasion to 
express. According to him, it was the common opinion 
of his day that adherence to the unities restrained the 
genius of the poet. This, be it remembered, was said 
at a time when English writers for the stage almost 
universally felt bound to observe them strictly, and did 
so observe them. He went on to remark that this false 
notion was due to the universal veneration paid to 
Shakespeare. The disregard which he, in compliance 
with the taste of his age, had shown to all the neces- 
sary rules of the drama, had been considered as a char- 
acteristic of his vast and original genius. Consequently 
it had been set up as a model for succeeding writers, 
and had exercised a baleful influence upon the develop- 
ment of the dramatic art. As a further confirmation 
of his view he quoted with approval the assertion of 
Voltaire made about a score of years previously, that 

248 



MINOR DRAMATIC CONVENTIONS 

the merit of Shakespeare had been the ruin of the Eng- 
lish stage. 

It is evidence of the great dramatist's influence that 
this low superstition, as Mason termed it, was, in spite 
of its absurdity, so popular that he feared it would 
never be discarded. The only hope he saw for rescu- 
ing the stage from the degradation into which it had 
fallen was to return to the chaste purity of the ancient 
time and restore the chorus. But this could only come 
about when a great poet should have arisen who would 
possess the genius and elevation of Shakespeare and the 
sober and chastened judgment of Racine. There was 
not much hope, however, for the speedy appearance of 
this prodigy. Accordingly he himself, though having, 
as he humbly expressed it, but common talents, had set 
out to produce a drama in which the best models of 
antiquity should be taken for a guide. It was his 
design, he asserted, to pursue the ancient method so far 
as it was probable a Greek would do, were he alive, in 
order to adapt himself to the genius of the times and 
the character of modern tragedy. Nature and Aristotle 
were regarded by Mason as equivalent terms; but 
everything they could dispense with was to be let go 
in order to accommodate the play to the present taste. 
The rigor of the classic drama was therefore to be soft- 
ened by having the action turn on the passion of love. 
It was private distress, and not the sorrows of royalty 
and the fate of kingdoms that was to be used to excite 
the sympathy of the reader. 

Such was the nature of the concession made to modem 
feelings. On the other hand, nothing was to be ad- 

249 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

mitted or omitted at which the Greek judgment could 
take offence. The things upon which nature and 
Aristotle insisted were strict adherence to the unities 
and the retention of the chorus; in fact, the former 
was a consequent of the latter. In restoring this, 
and thereby returning to the practice of the an- 
cients, lay the only hope of rescuing the modern 
stage from the decay which had overtaken it. For 
the chorus Mason had, as he tells us, early acquired 
veneration. He was disposed to regard it as essential 
to the tragic drama. It put necessary restraints of all 
sorts upon the poet. Its presence involved the unity 
of place, for its members were too numerous to be fol- 
lowing the characters about. As it also bore a part in 
the play itself, the time of action was necessarily no 
longer than that of representation. Thus these two uni- 
ties, whose observance both common sense and antiquity 
had prescribed, would be restored to the rights they 
once enjoyed and still claimed by the Magna Charta of 
Aristotle. The chorus, besides, added superior pomp 
and majesty to the drama. It brought an agreeable 
variety into the versification and metre. Above all, 
it furnished a vehicle for the communication of moral 
sentiments. Its animadversions instructed the spec- 
tator how to be affected properly by the words and 
acts of the characters. It kept him from being misled 
by their ill example, and enabled him to profit by what- 
ever good example they furnished. 

These are Mason's arguments for the chorus, set 
forth, whenever possible, in his very words. Yet he 
admitted that no popular success could attend repre- 

250 



MINOR DRAMATIC CONVENTIONS 

sentations of any such sort of tragic drama. It was 
therefore the reader to whom he addressed himself. 
He repelled the ignoble motive of seeking the applause 
of an unrefined and boisterous English audience, which 
could not be expected to appreciate the quiet beauties 
belonging to the chaste and noble style he had adopted, 
but would require instead action and business and 
bloodshed in open sight. So, like Milton before him, 
and Byron after him, he professed not to have in view 
any performance of his tragedy; though the writing of 
a play which is not designed to be acted seems very 
much like training a body of soldiers whose business 
shall be under no pretext to fight, Still it was felt 
that pieces of this delicate and lofty character could 
not safely be exposed to the rude breath of public as- 
semblies. Their beauties would be of the kind that 
the common class of hearers could neither understand 
nor feel. The fate which had befallen Racine's work. 
Mason told us, furnished ample warning of the disas- 
ter which would happen to him who attempted to 
repeat upon the English stage the experiment of that 
author. The French people were far superior to his 
own countrymen in the taste for probability and deco- 
rum in theatrical diversion. Yet they had not con- 
tinued willing to put up with the choruses introduced 
into the two great masterpieces, Athalie and Esther. 
These were no longer retained in the representation of 
the tragedies. What hope, therefore, could there be 
for pieces of this nature before the kind of audience 
that filled the pit of an English theatre! 

Voltaire with his usual clearness of vision, whenever 

251 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

preconceived prejudices did not interfere, had recog- 
nized the absurdity of attempting to return to this 
practice of the ancient drama. He tells us that in pre- 
paring (Edipe for the stage he consulted M. Dacier as 
to the methods he should follow. That scholar recom- 
mended him to put a chorus in every scene, after the 
manner of the ancients. He might have as well ad- 
vised me, said the poet dryly, to walk about the streets 
of Paris wearing Plato's gown. Yet unquestionably 
there would be at times opportunities for experiments of 
this sort which, by gratifying curiosity and appealing 
to attractions other than the purely dramatic, might 
meet with temporary favor. The venture in which 
Mason felt that it was impossible to achieve success 
was undertaken by another. In 1772 Colman, who was 
at that time managing the Covent Garden Theatre, 
brought out ' Elfrida. ' It ran for the number of 
twenty-seven nights,^ though this was largely due to 
the spectacular character given it, and to the music 
of Arne. Mason was very indignant at this proceeding 
of Colman, who had made use of his production with- 
out taking the trouble to ask his consent; but the suc- 
cess which the attempt had met led him in 1776 to 
alter for the stage his second play of the same kind. 
This was the one entitled ' Caractacus, ' which had been 
published in 1759. In 1779 he further altered ' Elfrida' 
with the same intent. Both these were produced at 
Covent Garden, and the first met with a fair degree of 
success. 2 But the novelty had worn off, and there was 

^ Genest, toI. v. p. 361. 

2 It was acted fourteen times, according to Genest, vol. v. p. 563. 
'Elfrida,' in Mason's later version, was acted five times, vol. vi. p. 95. 

252 



MINOR DRAMATIC CONVENTIONS 

a steady decline in interest in these productions from 
the time of Colman's first undertaking. It was only at 
rare intervals that they were ever brought out again, 
and then only for one or two nights; and after the 
close of the eighteenth century they were never put 
upon the stage. Colman indeed clearly believed that 
whatever success they had met with was due to other 
causes than the interest which the plays themselves 
had inspired. In truth, in his translation of Horace's 
Ars Poetica, published in 1783, he pointed out the in- 
expediency and uselessness of the attempts to restore 
the chorus to the modern stage. Furthermore, he took 
the ground that if it were revived, the other parts of the 
ancient drama — music and dancing — ought to be 
revived with it.^ 

Mason's opinions have been given here in full, not 
because they are important now or were influential 
then ; but mainly because they show that the classicists 
plainly recognized what was the influence that was over- 
throwing their doctrines. They are furthermore worth 
recording because Mason's friend, whose superiority to 
him in scholarship was as great as it was in poetry, was 
thereby enabled to administer to him some wholesome 
advice, and to lay down the true doctrine in an age 
which admired the practice of Shakespeare without 
daring to follow it, and frequently felt under obligation 
to apologize for admiring it. Gray saw what Mason 
could not comprehend, that the revival of classic memo- 
ries is something altogether distinct from the revival of 
the classic imagination. We know that he thought none 

1 Note to line 288 of Colman's translation of Horace's Ars Poetica. 

253 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

too highly of ' Elfrida ; ' but he thought far less of the 
views which had been expressed in the letters with 
which it had been introduced. He assured Mason that 
the reasons advanced by him were all wrong. He de- 
clared that the ancients were perpetually confined and 
hampered by the necessity of using the chorus, and that 
its abolition had given greater liberty both in the choice 
of the fable and in the conduct of it. " Love e-nd tender- 
ness," he wrote to his friend, "delight in privacy. 
The soft effusions of the soul, Mr. Mason, will not bear 
the presence of a gaping, singing, moralizing, uninter- 
esting crowd. And not love alone, but every passion, 
is checked and cooled by this fiddling crew. How 
could Macbeth and his wife have laid the design for 
Duncan's murder? What could they have said to each 
other in the hall at midnight, not only if a chorus, 
but if a single mouse, had been stirring there? Could 
Hamlet have met the ghost, or taken his mother to task 
in their company ? If Othello had said a harsh word to 
his wife before them, would they not have danced to 
the window and called the watch? "^ 

If Gray failed him. Mason had a certain consolation 
in knowing that his opinions met the approval of Hurd. 
This writer was in prose very much what he himself 
was in poetry. He was one of those who have regu- 
larly applied to them the epithet of elegant, for no other 
apparent reason than that they conspicuously lack force. 
From the first Hurd had been a warm advocate of the 
restoration of the chorus to the modern drama. In one 
of the notes in his edition of Horace's ' Art of Poetry,' 

1 Works of Gray, vol. iv. p. 2 (Mitford's edition). 
254 



MINOR DRAMATIC CONVENTIONS 

he argued strongly for this course, — that is, strongly in 
the sense of earnestly, not in that of effectively. In a 
later reprint of this work he brought forward as a suffi- 
cient proof of the desirability and possibility of its 
restoration the recent tragedies of ' Elfrida ' and ' Ca- 
ractacus,' "which," he added, "do honor to modern 
poetry, and are a better apology than any I could make 
for the ancient chorus. "^ Such praise did not too 
much elate the author. Even upon his natural self-sat- 
isfaction the consciousness of the superiority of the elder 
dramatist came down with crushing force, as it has 
upon many far greater men. In the dedicatory poem to 
Hurd, with which the later editions of ' Caractacus ' 
were accompanied. Mason told of the desire he had 
felt to bring to Britain the choral song, and to mingle 
Attic art with Shakespeare's fire. But the muse had 
rebuked his presumption. The one he might suc- 
ceed in attaining; the other was beyond his reach. 
All that Parnassus could bestow had been exhausted 
to light the flame in Shakespeare's breast. There 
was no hope of rivalling him. One consolation in- 
deed there was. Fire might be lacking; but art 
remained. It is very plain, however, from his words 
that it was not much of a consolation. 

In the preceding pages have been given the various 
conventional views which have in a measure swayed at 
times the theatre, and affected the conduct and treat- 
ment of the works produced for it ; as also by implica- 
tion the estimate in which Shakespeare has been held 
in consequence of his ignorance or disregard of these 

^ Note to line 193 of the Ars Poetica. 
255 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

restrictions. There are others about which less in- 
terest and less discussion prevailed in England than in 
other lands. One of these is the interlocking of the 
scenes so that the stage shall never be left empty. 
This is something which Ben Jonson kept in view 
to a certain extent. By the French critics it came 
to be considered among the greatest of dramatic 
beauties. Special stress was laid by them upon it. 
It was one of the points for which Voltaire claimed 
superiority for the stage of his own country over 
that of antiquity. Still it never gained much con- 
sideration in England even when French influence was 
most predominant. That it was not art, but artifice, 
never occurred to any of its advocates. It may be 
called artifice of a high order, if one so chooses; but 
it is none the less artifice. As it was with most of the 
other conventions, the men who sought to secure it 
always ran the risk of sacrificing to its acquisition 
natural beauties far greater. The same thing has been 
true of all the rules and practices which have been 
described in the present chapter. It was because the 
English race had in Shakespeare an example of con- 
formity to nature, to truth, and to life, that it was 
saved from immolating these upon the conventional 
altar which the classicists endeavored to set up. 



256 



CHAPTER VII 

LATE SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY CONTROVERSIES ABOUT 
SHAKESPEARE 

The gulf which separated the England of the Res- 
toration from the England that preceded the Com- 
monwealth was much deeper and broader than would 
naturally be indicated by the length of time which 
intervened. It was a world of different feelings and 
of different ideas that came in with Charles II. In 
politics the same formulas continued to be repeated; 
but the meaning they had assumed was totally unlike 
that which they had once conveyed. In literature new 
standards of criticism were set up, new modes of writ- 
ing came into fashion, new species of productions at- 
tracted the popular regard. The drama was quick to 
respond to the change in the national feeling. As from 
its very nature it reflects the life of the times, it soon 
began to show signs of that altered moral tone which 
was rapidly permeating all classes of society. It is the 
wholesale revolution of manners, the complete reversal 
of the attitude previously assumed towards conduct, 
which is the earliest as well as the most significant char- 
acteristic that the Restoration brings to our notice. 

Yet though earliest, it must not be imagined that 
this change took place on the spur of the moment. 
Men do not throw off in a day the restraints even of 
17 257 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

hypocrisy, still less those of virtue. The current be- 
gan running immediately, it is true, and it soon came 
to run very rapidly ; but at first it moved so slowly 
that for the moment one might deem it was not moving 
at all. But when once under full headway it made the 
most impressive of manifestations of itself in the reck- 
less, shameless life that was then lived, which was soon 
to find its fullest representation in the witty but shame- 
less comedy that was evolved. For the comic drama 
of the forty years which followed the Restoration mir- 
rors the beliefs and sentiments of its fashionable society 
as does no other form of its literature, and perhaps as 
does the literature of no other period. The rapid de- 
clension of character was at the time a matter of com- 
ment and almost of boasting, Dryden's first play, ' The 
Wild Gallant,' had been brought out in 1663, and had 
proved a failure. Considerably altered for the worse 
morally, it was revived with more success in 1667. 
In the prologue the author informed the audience that 
he himself had once thought his hero monstrous lewd, 
but since his knowledge of the town had increased, 
he was ashamed to find him a very civil sort of per- 
sonage. Accordingly he had made him lewder. Yet 
he felt that he had not reached the ideal demanded. 
" Pray pardon him his want of wickedness," he added. 
Still the most repulsive impression produced by the 
comic drama of the age is not its licentiousness, gross 
as that is, but its selfishness and hardness. Its fine 
ladies and gentlemen lack the ordinary feelings of 
humanity. They have none of those redeeming traits 
of occasional kindliness and of generous impulse which 

258 



SE VENTEENTH-CENTUR Y CONTR VERSIES 

are frequently found in men who to a great extent spend 
their lives in frivolous or vicious pursuits. The}'- are 
cruel, savages at heart, though dressed in the height of 
the mode and gilded over with a gloss of good manners. 
But the most curious spectacle the members of this 
society present, as they appear in the drama of the 
period, is their utter ignorance of anything in the 
shape of a moral code, their manifest unconsciousness 
of the desirability of refraining fi'om any line of con- 
duct that would conduce to their own pleasure or 
advantage, merely on the ground that it was improper 
or wicked. The possessor of morals they seem to have 
looked upon with the same inquiring gaze of wonder 
which fills the eye of the ordinary man when he sees 
some one paying enormous prices for first editions of 
books. Morality, in fact, was something so entirely 
outside of their consideration and conduct that they 
could hardly even comprehend the interest that others 
appeared to take in it. The most they could do was 
to recognize it as a factor which had to be reckoned 
with, because there were cases in which, through the 
agency of persons with wiiom they came in contact, 
it had an indirect connection with themselves. In 
the eyes of such a body of men neither good behavior 
nor good character was a necessity. Both, in truth, 
were looked upon in the light of personal luxuries, 
indulgence in which partook somewhat of the dis- 
creditable, as being of the nature of an unmanly pan- 
dering to the prejudices of fanatics. This is the 
testimony of the comic drama ; it is also the testimony 
of records of the time outside of the drama. 

259 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

To persons of tliis class the matter of Shakespeare's 
plays would generally be of little interest, even if no 
fault were to be found with their manner. It is obvious 
at the outset that no writer of the Elizabethan period 
would in any case have the aids to popularity which 
belonged to him before the great civil convulsion. 
Whatever hold upon the public the dramatist had 
once had from the impression wrought by his own 
personality, had now disappeared entirely. The men 
who could remember him or remember his triumphs 
had passed away. A new generation had arisen which 
knew him not. It was a generation, in fact, which had 
largely been taught to avoid him and his kind. We 
have to keep in mind that for almost twenty years 
preceding the Restoration the theatres had been closed. 
Consequently, when Charles II. ascended the throne, 
a generation had grown up which had never had the 
opportunity, even if it had had the desire, to witness 
a stage representation. Furthermore, the iniquity of 
it had been sedulously preached. It was wicked to 
act plays ; it was wicked to see them acted. No matter 
how much the reason might reject such views as the 
outcome of a narrow and ignorant bigotry, the impres- 
sions of years were not to be effaced in a moment. 
To the men of the Restoration period the theatre had 
not only the allurement of a pleasure from which they 
had been long debarred ; to enhance the keenness of its 
attractions was also a latent sense that there was some- 
thing wicked in the enjoyment they felt. 

The immortal diarist, Pepys, has here let us into the 
workings of many minds by revealing his own. He 

260 



SE VENTEENTH- CENTUR Y CONTR VERSIES 

was extravagantly fond of the theatre, and spent no 
small share of his time in forming resolutions not to 
go to it so frequently, and in reproaching himself for 
having broken his resolutions and gone. Part of his 
remorse was undoubtedly due to the neglect of busi- 
ness such conduct entailed. But it is likewise easy 
to see that in frequenting plays he was at first snatch- 
ing also that fearful jo}^ which comes from pursuing a 
pleasure in which there is an uneasy consciousness that 
we ought not to indulge. From the point of view of 
the student of the stage it may be proper to express 
regret for the wearing away of this particular incentive 
to theatre-going in the general loosening of ancient be- 
liefs which came to prevail. As tlie flavor of iniquity, 
which gave a zest of its own to the attractions of the 
playhouse, was gradually lost, the temptations that beset 
him to haunt it were more and more overcome by his 
business habits. In 1661 he had manifested a noble 
disregard of his duties, and repaired to the theatre on 
every imaginable pretext. The record of seventy-four 
performances which he witnessed that year he never 
afterward equalled. In 1662 began his downward 
career as a contributor to our knowledge of the drama. 
No better example can be cited of the injurious con- 
sequences that are liable to result from too earnest and 
unflinching devotion to one's duty. No doubt Pepys 
improved his pecuniary situation and prospects by re- 
fraining from following his inclinations, and staying 
instead at his office and looking after matters to which 
none of the officials attended but himself. But in 
so doing he sacrificed the future to the present. He 

261 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

deprived posterity of much knowledge which he alone 
would have given ; and in addition, he permanently in- 
jured his own eyesight. 

As a consequence of the long closing of the theatres, 
the acting of the plays of the earlier drama was at first 
a matter of necessity rather than of choice. For a score 
of years there had been little inducement for those seek- 
ing either literary distinction or personal profit to write 
for the stage. Dramatic production had therefore prac- 
tically ceased. When the theatre was re-opened at the 
Restoration, with the exception of D'Avenant and Shir- 
ley, — both then nearing the grave, — the prominent 
members of the older generation of playwrights had 
gone. None had come forward to take their places. 
The actors, accordingly, were compelled to resort to the 
pieces which had been produced before the civil war. 
Of the writers of these, three still retained the promi- 
nence which they had enjoyed from the first. They 
were Shakespeare, Jonson, and Fletcher. But in the 
change of taste which was going on, no reputation that 
came down from the past would avail the dramatist 
much, or avail him long. Every generation has a 
thoroughgoing contempt for the critical estimate of the 
generation which precedes it. It is always disposed to 
congratulate itself most complacently on the undoubted 
fact that it itself has reached that summit of perfect 
taste from which it can look with mingled amusement 
and contempt upon most of the wretched stuff that 
pleased the men of the former age. The names they 
held in highest honor it judges with calm but judicial 
severity, and assigns them the precise position to which 

262 



SE VENTEENTH-CENTUR Y CONTR VERSIES 

they are entitled. Naturally, this was what the critics 
of the Restoration period did to the representative play- 
wrights of the Elizabethan era. 

The opinion entertained about Shakespeare is the only 
one that concerns us especially. Here, as elsewhere, 
Pepys introduces us to the knowledge of the inner 
belief and feelings of the time. He is by no means 
our only authority, but he is our best, at least our most 
delightful one. Nothing can be more entertaining than 
his delicious bits of criticism, whose impudent inap- 
preciativeness later writers have occasionally equalled, 
but whose charm they have never been able even re- 
motely to rival. His good opinion of ' Henry IV; '^ 
his frequent guarded approval of ' Hamlet ' and ' Mac- 
beth ; ' his characterization of ' Twelfth Night ' and 
' The Taming of the Shrew ' as silly plays ; ^ his peru- 
sal of ' The Adventures of Five Hours,' which made 
' Othello,' which he had previously thought a mighty 
good play, seem by comparison a mean thing ;^ his 
feminine addiction to superlatives, which led him to 
describe ' Romeo and Juliet ' as the worst play he had 
ever heard in his life,* and ' The Midsummer Night's 
Dream ' as the most insipid ridiculous play he had ever 
seen in his life,^ — these choice critical comments cause 
the most energetic modern censure, dealing, as it does, 
in insinuation rather than direct assertion, to seem 
peculiarly tame and pointless. It is not that there are 
no men now who do not think as he did then ; but they 

1 Diary, June 4, 1661. 2 Hjid. Jan. 6, 1663, and Nov. 1, 1667. 

8 Ibid. Aug. 20, 1666. * Ibid. March 1, 1662. 

5 Ibid. Sept. 29, 1662. 

263 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

no longer have the courage of their convictions, they 
dare not commit their real feelings even to their diaries. 
However strange these comments of Pepys may seem to 
us, we are not to forget that their writer was an edu- 
cated man, a graduate of Cambridge University, and 
possessed of scholarly, or, at any rate, of antiquarian 
tastes. In this matter he was no more than a represen- 
tative of feelings widely prevalent among the members 
of a certain class in his age. The opinions he com- 
mitted to paper others publicly expressed. For in- 
stance, Shirley's earliest written play, ' The School of 
Compliment,' was brought out in a revised form in 
1667, the year after his death. The prologue written 
for the occasion announces that the change of taste 
long before presaged had now come to prevail. In it 
we are told, — 

" In our old plays, the humor, love and passion, 
Like doublet, hose and cloak, are out of fashion ; 
That which the world called wit in Shakespeare's age, 
Is laughed at as improper for our stage." 

With this altered attitude on the part of the public, 
there is nothing surprising in the fact that during the 
score of years immediately following the Restoration 
the reputation of Shakespeare was lower than it has 
been at any period before or since. One must guard 
against the impression that it was a low one in itself. 
There were then, unquestionably, some who stood ready 
to deny him a lofty position. But they were compara- 
tively few in number. It was his supreme position 
only which was not conceded by many. The superior- 
ity of Ben Jonson was strongly maintained by a certain 

264 



SE VENTEENTH- CENTUR Y CONTR VERSIES 

class. It was not a large one; but it was made up 
largely of influential persons. A belief of this nature 
existed, to some extent, before the civil war, more 
especially in what may be called the scholastic section 
of the general body of educated men. Later it in- 
creased for a while rather than diminished. For no 
inconsiderable period after the Restoration, it was no 
infrequent thing to find Jonson spoken of as surpass- 
ing in comedy all writers, whether ancient or modern. 
Shakespeare's greatness in that field was recognized 
only occasionally; it was not until the middle of the 
following century that men began to open their eyes to 
his superiority. Down to that time it was to tragedy 
that his reputation was principally confined. But while 
Jonson was held up as the greatest of English drama- 
tists by a select circle, which arrogated to itself special 
culture, Fletcher was in the early days of the restored 
stage the favorite of the theatre-going public. There 
are plenty of contemporary statements which imply this 
fact; there is a well-known one which establishes it 
beyond question. We find it in Dryden's ' Essay of 
Dramatic Poesy,' which was published in 1668, but 
was written, as he tells us, in 1665. It bore emphatic 
witness to the then greater popularity of the plays of 
Beaumont and Fletcher, though it made no attempt to 
put them on an equality with Shakespeare's or Jon- 
son's, far less to accord them actual superiority. " Their 
plays," Dryden wrote, "are now the most pleasant and 
frequent entertainments of the stage; two of theirs 
being acted through the year for one of Shakespeare's 
or of Jonson's." 

265 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

The preference for Fletcher at that time is perhaps 
not hard to explain. He is remarkable for the easiness 
and agreeableness of his dialogue, which furthermore 
makes far less demand than Shakespeare's either upon 
the ability of the actor or the attention of the spec- 
tator. But the crowning reason for the preference then 
exhibited is something entirely different. Fletcher's 
comedies are upon a distinctly inferior plane of moral- 
ity. The conversation is often coarse, and at times 
actually offensive. The licentiousness characterizing 
it, which has largely contributed to drive these plays 
from the modern stage, undoubtedly added to their 
attraction at the period of the Restoration. It is prob- 
ably the fact that in every generation there are people 
who are as much irritated by the absence of indecency in 
a dramatic performance as others are by its presence. 
Such persons, who, it is to be hoped, are exceptional 
now, seem to have frequently constituted the majority 
of the audience in the half century that followed the 
Restoration. This would be a sufficient reason of itself 
why the comedies of Fletcher should appeal especially 
to the reigning taste. 

In the matter of morality Shakespeare stands on an 
inconceivably higher level than his then more popular 
contemporary. Contrast, for illustration, ' The Taming 
of the Shrew ' with Fletcher's comedy of ' The Woman's 
Prize, or the Tamer Tamed.' The latter was written 
as a second part to the former. The moral superiority 
of the greater dramatist is exhibited on almost every 
page. ' The Taming of the Shrew ' is by no means one 
of Shakespeare's best comedies. But whatever its defi- 

266 



SE VENTEENTH-CENTUR Y CONTR VERSIES 

ciencies as compared with others of his works, there 
is scarcely a line in it to offend not simply the moral 
sense, but what may be called the moral taste. It 
could be acted and has been acted before a modern 
audience with the slightest possible excision or altera- 
tion. But Fletcher's sequel is fairly gross in the in- 
delicacy and even vulgarity of its expression. Speeches 
of this sort, moreover, are constantly put in the mouths 
of the female characters. The purely sensual side of 
the marriage relation is more than brought to the atten- 
tion ; it is forced upon it unremittingly. Yet this play, 
which no audience of the present time would tolerate, 
was especially liked in court circles before the civil 
war, was one of the pieces revived immediately after the 
Restoration, and was, withal, one of the most popular. 

But though Fletcher remained for a time the favorite 
of the public, his pre-eminence did not continue long. 
In the race that went on for the position of acknowl- 
edged superiority Shakespeare gradually passed not 
only his rival contemporaries but the whole body of his 
successors. His rise in estimation was the work of no 
party. He made his way against a determined disposi- 
tion in certain quarters to decry his merits. By some 
his claims to recognition were entirely ignored. The 
French exile, St. Evremond, informs us that in order 
to do Ben Jonson honor men called him the Corneille 
of England ; but the people with whom he associated, 
and from whom he learned all the little he knew of 
the English drama, apparently thought it hardly worth 
while to mention to him the name of Shakespeare. Yet 
amid all this conflict of opinion the steadily growing 

267 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

conviction of his immense superiority is revealed unmis- 
takably in the critical literature of the half century 
following the accession of Charles II. The varying 
feelings of the times about the great dramatist are best 
reflected in the pages of Dryden, its foremost man of 
letters. Necessarily, in the special literary estimate 
entertained at a particular period about a particular 
writer, we must take into account the ideas then domi- 
nant. In the judgment expressed in regard to an 
author in any epoch there is always manifest the effect 
of that general stream of tendency against which men 
struggle with difiiculty, and with which they are usu- 
ally contented to drift. The critical standard which is 
erected by the age is as much to be considered as the 
personal equation of the individual. 

It is this which makes the varying views of Dryden 
interesting and important. He was a man of broad 
sympathies as well as keen insight. There was, in 
consequence, going on in his mind a constant struggle 
between opinions which reflect the predominant temper 
of the times and opinions which are the outgrowth of 
his personal taste and judgment, and sometimes are 
little more than a reflection of his personal interests. 
This explains largely his conflicting utterances. Under 
the influence of the doctrines accepted in his age he 
was determined to believe in the inferiority of the 
Elizabethan dramatists, at least in the matter of art. 
They were vigorous, but they were unpolished and 
rude. In this particular Dryden made as much as he 
could of the superiority of his contemporaries. Yet it 
is clear from many of his remarks that there was in his 

268 



SEVENTEENTH-CENTUR Y CONTROVERSIES 

own mind indecision and uncertainty, even when he 

most loudly proclaimed his confidence. We recognize 

in his most positive claims something of that uneasy 

feeling which characterizes pretenders, who are never 

quite sure that they have a legitimate title to the 

possessions which they loudly demand as their right. 

Dryden might profess to think that the dramatists who 

flourished before the civil war were ignorant of art; but 

he could not long hide from himself the conviction of 

their general superiority to the men of his own time. 

However lacking they might be in what was called 

regularity, there was something higher and nobler in 

which they excelled. 

" Time, place, and action may with pains be wrought, 
But geuius must be boru, and never can be taught," 

is the exclamation, almost despairing, which he makes 
in the remarkable epistle to Congreve, upon the diffi- 
culties with which the dramatic writers of his time 
had to contend in order to stand upon a level with the 
men who had gone before. " Theirs was the giant race 
before the flood," he declared. True, with the return 
of Charles the roughness of the early time had been 
polished, its boisterousness had been subdued; but he 
added mournfully, — 

" Our age was cultivated thus at length, 
But what we gained in skill we lost in strength. 
Our builders were with want of geuius cursed ; 
The second temple was not like the first." 

It is clear from the various utterances of Dryden that 
the longer he lived the superiority of Shakespeare grew 
upon him. In this particular also he reflected the feel- 

269 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

ings of his age as well as his own individual impres- 
sions. That the reputation of the great Elizabethan 
continued steadily to increase, instead of diminishing, 
disturbed a good deal the classicists of the time. He 
had violated every one of the rules upon which they in- 
sisted; for it nobody seemed to hold him in less honor. 
Much of the learned criticism to which he was sub- 
jected was not hostile in spirit. Indeed in its way it 
was often inclined to be friendly. What irritated it 
was the disposition exhibited by men to doubt the in- 
fallibility of the utterances it oracularly pronounced; 
further, to deny that the defects which it imputed to 
Shakespeare were really defects. As time went on, it 
came increasingly into conflict with a belief in his 
surpassing excellence which in its eyes was nothing 
but bigotry; but it was a bigotry which not only re- 
sisted the well-meant attempts to enlighten it, but 
resented any disposition manifested to depreciate its 
idol. In 1710 Gildon, at the conclusion of his ' Remarks 
on the Plays of Shakespeare, ' ^ declared that to oppose 
the admirers of the dramatist was counted as little less 
than heresy in poetry ; and that these insisted that he 
was the greatest genius of modern times. He could 
not speak much, he said, in praise of ' Macbeth ; ' yet he 
did not dare to censure. "It has obtained," he wrote, 
" and is in too much esteem with the million, for any 
man to say yet much against it." Like many of the 
critics after him, his words show that he looked for the 
revival of a purer taste; but its expected appearance 
kept receding farther and farther in the distance as 

1 In Supplementary Volume (1710) to Howe's Shakespeare of 1709. 

270 



SE VENTEENTH-CENTUR Y CONTR VERSIES 

time went on. Yet no one seemed to heed the lesson 
this steady growth of reputation taught. It took more 
than a century for men to draw from this continuous 
and increasing popuhirity the seemingly unavoidable 
inference that what Shakespeare did was artistically 
great, and possessed therefore that enduring vitality 
which belongs to everything that is so created. 

No account of the controversies about Shakespeare's 
art during the eighteenth century can neglect the con- 
sideration of the views about it, jDut forth by those 
who, whether little or well known now, made them- 
selves then prominent in the discussion. During the 
half-century that followed the Restoration there were 
but three authors who dealt directly in Shakespearean 
criticism; for Dryden's observations, though frequent 
and important, were brought in only incidentally. 
These three were Rymer, — of whom some account 
has already been given, — John Dennis, and Charles 
Gildon. In some ways they were men very much alike. 
They possessed about the same mental characteristics. 
To a certain extent they encountered similar fortunes. 
All three fell under the lash of Pope ; though Rymer, 
having died before he had had the opportunity to give 
the poet any real cause of offence, escaped with slight 
censure, and, if Spence can be trusted, received from him 
praise out of all proportion to his desert. Of the other 
two the modern estimate is largely based not upon what 
they were, but upon what Pope said they were. All 
three had then the repute of possessing great erudition. 
The reader of their writings now is struck much more 
by the exhibition they make at times of the most in- 

271 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

sufferable self-conceit and arrogance. All three were 
devoted to what they called the poetic art. They all 
wrote regular plays in conformity with its require- 
ments ; and while neither those of Dennis nor of Gildon 
approached anywhere near the unrivalled wretchedness 
of Rymer's single attempt, their productions were not 
of sufficient merit to commend the practice of the doc- 
trines they preached. All three looked at Shakespeare 
from essentially the same point of view. They all 
agreed as to his deplorable lack of art. The first 
reviled him for it ; the other two grieved over it. But 
while these last appeared as his apologists and de- 
fenders, they did what they could to injure his reputa- 
tion by bringing out abominable alterations of his plays. 
Of these three writers Dennis was much the ablest 
man as well as the best critic. His understanding was 
in many ways acute, and his appreciation of poetry 
keen. Long before Addison's far better known essays 
appeared, Dennis had made Milton's epic the subject 
of frequent extract and eulogistic comment. In the 
preface to his tragedy of ' Iphigenia, ' which appeared in 
1700, he had spoken of the poet himself as "perhaps 
the greatest genius that has appeared in the world these 
seventeen hundred years." In a later work he declared 
' Paradise Lost ' to be " the greatest poem that ever was 
written by man."^ A passage in the fifth book would 
always stand alone as the phoenix of lofty hymns. No 
equal of it, no second to it could be produced from 
the Greek writers of such productions. ^ At that early 

1 Dennis's ' Grounds of Criticism in Poetry' (1704), p. 54. 
a Ibid. p. 56. 

272 



SE VENTEENTH-CENTUR Y CONTR VERSIES 

period Dennis's writings are free from the character- 
istics by which they were afterward too much distin- 
guished. In truth, the intimate relations in which he 
stood witli many of the most eminent men of the latter 
part of the seventeenth century furnish convincing evi- 
dence of the high opinion which was then entertained 
of his ability and acquirements. Not to speak of others, 
he was the friend and correspondent of Dryden and 
Wycherley. To him Congreve addressed in the form 
of a letter his well-known essay on humor in comedy. 
There was a general respect felt for him as a critic by 
men whose opinions were worthy of respect. To some 
extent it was justified. But he encountered the fate of 
those who fall into the error of mistaking temporary 
conventions for eternal verities. In the treatise on the 
genius and writings of Shakespeare, which appeared in 
1712, he was seen at his worst. Positions taken in it 
were indefensible, and throughout it was deformed by 
wearisome twaddle about the poetic art and regret for 
the ignorance of it exhibited by the dramatist. For all 
that, his praise of the poet was enthusiastic. His taste 
was always struggling with his theories, and sense or 
nonsense followed according as the one or the other 
prevailed. 

As time went by, Dennis found himself passed in the 
race by younger and abler men. His plays achieved but 
a moderate success on the stage, and some of them no 
success at all. Tliis was to him undeniable proof of 
the poor taste of the age. He purposed the publication 
of a complete body of criticism in poetry; but as he 
secured less than eighty guineas subscription, the 
18 273 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

project had to be abandoned.^ His ill-fortune soured a 
temper not originally remarkable for meekness and ami- 
ability. He began to assume a hostile attitude towards 
his generation. He became a professed enemy to all 
who succeeded. He was undoubtedly sincere in his 
assertion that he never criticised any one who was not 
exalted by the public largely above his deserts. ^ But 
there speedily comes to be a fascination in procedure of 
this kind which perverts the judgment. That men 
speak highly of any production is regarded as presump- 
tive proof that it is poor; and the greater the praise 
they give it, the fiercer is the depreciation. The ten- 
dency to dwell on faults exclusively, whether in a work 
of literature or in the body politic, increases with indul- 
gence. It ends at last in destroying the ability to see 
things in their true light and estimate their relative im- 
portance. Dennis went through the usual experience. 
He lost all sense of perspective. In addition, his criti- 
cism became more and more of an abusive character. 
He worked himself into mighty passions over the pet- 
tiest matters, and along with it indulged in gross per- 
sonalities. He came, in consequence, into unfriendly 
relations with the two most eminent men of letters of 
the time, who belonged themselves to different, if not 
to hostile parties ; though in the case of one of them he 
seems not to have been the aggressor. Still in both 
instances it was he who in the long run suffered by it, 
not they. The adherents of Addison bore him no good- 

1 Preface to ' Grounds of Criticism in Poetry ; ' also Gildon's ' Com- 
plete Art of Poetry, ' vol. i. p. 185. 

2 Preface to ' Remarks upon Pope's Translation of Homer' (1717). 

274 



SE VENTEENTH-CENTUR Y CONTRO VERSIES 

will, and he will never recover from the representations 
and misrepresentations of his character which Pope has 
transmitted. 

Gildon, the third of these, wrote much more about 
Shakespeare than the two others, but is now known 
the least. Superior himself to Rymer, he looked upon 
Dennis as his master, and on more than one occasion 
celebrated him as the most consummate critic of the 
age.^ He experienced the same unhappy fate as his 
leader. He incurred the enmity of Pope, which, like 
the wrath of Achilles, sent to untimely graves the 
reputations of scores of writers of more or less ability. 
Gildon lived until 1724, but it was not till near his 
death that the hostility of the poet, which had been 
previously exhibited in prose, embalmed itself in verse. 
In a fragment published the previous year the epithet of 
"mean" was attached to his pen; for it, later, was 
substituted "venal." With Dennis he had his place in 
the ' Dunciad.' Pope's pretext was a pretended perpe- 
tration of acts against himself personally. These, it is 
almost needless to say, Gildon never committed. His 
real offence was his friendship with Dennis, and his 
agreement with that critic in his low estimate of Pope's 
productions. 

Gildon put the climax on one or two previous at- 
tacks by the references he both made and failed to 
make in a work entitled ' The Complete Art of Poetry. ' 
This appeared in 1718. In the introduction to it he 
discussed the two versions of the ' Iliad, ' so far as they 
were then before the public. He represented Will's 

1 For example, see ' Complete Art of Poetry, ' vol. i. p. 185. 
275 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

coffee-house as favoring Pope's translation, and But- 
ton's as favoring Tickell's. For himself, as an indiffer- 
ent and impartial person, he considered that the latter 
author had entered more into the soul of Homer and 
had better exhibited his masculine strength and native 
simplicity ; while the former had embellished his version 
with softness and harmony.^ But in the body of the 
work he called it "an abominable translation. "^ He 
did even worse than this. In the discussion of pastoral 
poetry he wounded Pope in a most sensitive part by 
not making even a reference to that which he had 
written. As if this were not enough, he exalted Am- 
brose Philips above all authors of this kind which 
later times had produced. He was, indeed, the only 
one who could be put alongside of Theocritus and 
Vergil. All tolerable judges, said Gildon, gave him 
the first place among the moderns. Then came an 
allusion to Pope's ironical criticism in ' The Guardian ' 
of his rival's pastoral poetry. "There have been," 
he wrote, "poor and malicious endeavors made use of 
to ridicule that of Mr. Philips; but the effect was so 
wretched and the malice so visible, that they are already 
dead and therefore not worth our notice." ^ No student 
of Pope's life and writings needs to be told that these 
are words which would never cease to rankle in the 
poet's mind. 

The first of these three writers to take the field was 
Rymer. He had no special spite against Shakespeare; 
no more against him at least than he had against his 

1 Complete Art of Poetry, vol. i. p. xii. 2 Jbij, p, 135. 

8 Ibid. pp. 157 and 161. 

276 



I 



SE VENTEENTH-CENTUR Y CONTR VERSIES 

contemporaries. The censure in his volume upon the 
tragedies of the previous age had fallen almost exclu- 
sively upon works of Beaumont and Fletcher. He had 
spent so much time in demolishing these that he had 
left himself no space for other authors. He therefore 
deferred to a future day the remarks on ' Othello ' 
which he had been intending to make. Years passed, 
but the promised criticism did not appear. In the 
mean time the reputation of Fletcher was waning, while 
that of Shakespeare was waxing. At last Rymer broke 
his long silence. It may be that he fancied that the 
fading attractions of the two brother dramatists was due 
to his efforts in expounding the principles of true art, 
and that the further duty now devolved upon him to 
crush the pretensions of the worthless playwright whose 
repute was steadily rising. At any rate, at the end 
of 1692, — about fourteen years after the appearance of 
the previous work, — he came out with a treatise on 
tragedy, containing reflections upon Shakespeare and 
other practitioners for the stage. It was preceded by 
so-called second editions of his first essay and of his 
'Edgar.' These consisted in both cases of unsold 
copies, to which new title-pages had been prefixed. 
Much of the new work was given up to comment and 
information which had no real connection with the sub- 
ject. It was lugged in to exhibit Rymer's learning, 
and not unfrequently exhibits his lack of it. But when 
he settles down to his proper business, his treatise has 
a good deal of that sort of interest which the exertions 
of a venomous and vigorous mediocrity are often ca- 
pable of imparting. If Beaumont and Fletcher had not 

277 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

previously fared well at his bands, Shakespeare was a 
still greater sufferer. If any one has become surfeited 
with the prevalent praise of the great dramatist, he can 
experience a delightful satisfaction in reading the genial 
views expressed about him by a writer regarded by 
many in his own time as one of its foremost critics. 

To two plays, both then exceedingly popular, and 
both left unaltered, Rymer devoted himself in particu- 
lar. These were ' Othello ' and ' Julius Csesar. ' What 
is said of them may be summed up briefly. The fable 
of the former, we are told, is improbable and absurd, 
the characters are unnatural and improper, the thoughts 
and their expression are of a piece with the charac- 
ters, i "In the neighing of an horse, or in the growling 
of a mastiff," he remarks, "there is a meaning, there 
is as lively expression, and, may I say, more humanity, 
than many times in the tragical flights of Shake- 
speare. "^ In another place he speaks of "a long rabble 
of Jack-pudden farce betwixt lago and Desdemona, 
that runs on with all the little plays, jingle and trash 
below the patience of any country kitchen-maid with 
her sweet-heart."^ This heroine does not, indeed, meet 
with much favor at the critic's hands. "No woman," 
he says, "bred out of a pig-sty, could talk so meanly. "^ 
He indeed concedes that in the play there is "some 
burlesque, some humor and ramble of comical wit, some 
shew and some mimicry to divert the spectators ; but the 
tragical part is plainly none other than a bloody farce 
without salt or savor." Naturally he was pained at 

1 Short View of Tragedy, p. 92. 2 ibid. p. 96. 

3 Ibid. p. 110. 4 Ibid. p. 131. 

278 



SE VENTEENTH-CENTUR Y CONTR VERSIES 

the corrupting effect of such performances upon both 
taste and manners. " What can remain with the audi- 
ence," he says, "to carry home with them from this 
sort of poetry for their use and edification ? How can 
it work unless (instead of settling the mind and purg- 
ing our passions) to delude our senses, disorder our 
thoughts, addle our brain, pervert our affections, hare 
our imaginations, corrupt our appetite, and fill our head 
with vanity, confusion, Tintamarre and jingle-jangle 
beyond what all the parish clerks of London, with their 
Old Testament farces and interludes in Richard the 
Second's time, could ever pretend to?"^ 

So much for ' Othello. ' ' Julius Caesar ' came off no 
better. Shakespeare, we are told, had no business to 
deal with real events. His head " was full of villainous 
unnatural images, and history has only furnished him 
with great names, thereby to recommend them to the 
world." ^ "Never any poet," he says elsewhere, "so 
boldly and so bare-faced flounced along from contra- 
diction to contradiction. "3 Naturally his disregard 
of what Rymer deemed decorum was unpardonable. 
"One would not talk of rules," he remarks, "or what 
is regular with Shakespeare or any followers in the 
gang of the strolling fraternity." * He does not there- 
fore wonder that the theatre grows corrupt and scanda- 
lous, or that poetry is sunk from its ancient reputation 
and dignity to the utmost contempt and derision " when 
some senseless trifling tale as that of ' Othello,' or some 
mangled, abused, undigested, interlarded history " — by 

1 Short View of Tragedy, p. UQ. 2 i]j[± p. 143. 

3 Ibid. p. 151. * Ibid. p. 161. 

279 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

which he means ' Julius Csesar ' — "on our stage im- 
piously assumes the sacred name of tragedy."^ "We 
are indeed assured by Rymer that Shakespeare's genius 
lay in comedy and humor alone. "In tragedy," it 
is added, "he appears quite out of his element. His 
brains are turned, he raves and rambles without any 
coherence, any spark of reason, or any rule to control 
him or set bounds to his frenzy. "^ This last sentence 
is so true a picture of Rymer himself that it would 
have been an injustice to him personally not to have 
quoted it in its entirety; but to appreciate fully how 
thoroughly descriptive it is of the man, one must read 
the whole book. 

One further sentence in this work is worth reproduc- 
ing, not so much as an exhibition of its author's spirit 
and critical acumen as for the infinite satisfaction it 
was later to afford Voltaire. Rymer, who seemed to 
have as much anxiety to display his incapacity as others 
have to hide theirs, had commented upon some extracts 
he had made from ' Othello,' for no other purpose, 
apparently, than to furnish convincing evidence of his 
utter lack of literary appreciation. To one passage he 
appended a remark upon its author. " There is not a 
monkey," it ran, "but understands nature better; not a 
pug in Barbary that has not a truer taste of things. "^ 
All this is entertaining; but one would gain a most 
erroneous impression of the facts, were he to take the 
sentences which have been cited as the general, or even 
a general, opinion prevailing among critics at the time 

1 Short View of Tragedy, p. 164. 

2 Ibid. p. 156. 8 Ibid. p. 124. 

280 



SEVENTEENTH-CENTUR Y CONTROVERSIES 

they appeared. The truth is that these tirades, so far 
from representing the sentiments of any party, even the 
very smallest, are nothing but the views of scattered in- 
dividuals ; and it is not impossible that as large a num- 
ber of those holding not unlike opinions exist now as 
did then. The bitterness Rymer displayed was mainly 
due to the exceeding popularity of the poet he affected 
to despise. The censurer was stung by the general pref- 
erence. In one place he refers sarcastically to the 
"unimitable" Shakespeare, just as Voltaire subse- 
quently delighted to call him the " divine ; " both ad- 
jectives being epithets even then constantly applied to 
the dramatist. The chapter on ' Othello ' bears unwill- 
ing witness to the favor with which that play was 
regarded. " From all the tragedies acted on our Eng- 
lish stage," it begins, "'Othello' is said to bear the 
bell away."^ While criticising ferociously the inter- 
view between lago and Othello, in which the former 
by shrugs and suggestions and insinuations arouses the 
jealous feelings of the latter, Rymer is compelled to de- 
scribe it as being in common opinion "the top scene, 
the scene that raises Othello above all other tragedies 
on our theatres."^ These are testimonies of an enemy 
which cannot be gainsaid. 

Rymer had had no occasion to felicitate himself upon 
the success which had attended his remarks on Beau- 
mont and Fletcher. This treatise, from its unsold 
copies appearing fourteen years later as a second edi- 
tion, had plainly met with but a small sale. His own 
words further imply that his views had encountered a 
1 Short View of Tragedy, p. 86. « Ibid. p. lia 

281 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

good deal of censure. In tlie epistle dedicating his 
second volume to the Earl of Dorset, he tells us that 
when years before he had tried the public with observa- 
tions concerning the stage, it was principally the counte- 
nance of that nobleman which had buoyed him up and 
supported a righteous cause against the prejudice and 
corruption then reigning. It was in behalf of the sacred 
principles of the pure doctrine of poetry established by 
the primitive fathers, such as Aristotle and Horace, 
that he once again took the field and sallied forth to 
expose the wretchedness of Shakespeare's work. Such 
was his repute for learning with all, and for critical 
sagacity with some, that the announcement of his in- 
tention awakened considerable interest. To use the 
language of the age, his volume was awaited by the 
ingenious with much impatience. 

To the existence of this expectation we have direct 
contemporary evidence. The French refugee, Motteux, 
now best known to us by his translations of Rabelais and 
Cervantes, had a short time before started a monthly 
miscellany, somewhat of the modern magazine nature, 
under the title of ' The Gentleman's Journal.' It was 
the first work of its particular kind in our tongue. 
Along with its other contents in verse and prose, it 
furnished a certain amount of literary gossip in regard 
to books soon to be published and plays soon to be pro- 
duced. In the number for October, 1692, it announced 
that Mr. Rhymer — so the name was spelled — " will 
shortly oblige the world with some more of his nice and 
judicious criticism on some of our dramatic writings." 
In the number for the following December he recorded 

282 



SE VENTEENTH-CENTUR Y CONTR VERSIES 

its appearance. Motteux, unlike St. Evremond, had 
mastered the English language. He had come to know 
and to admire Shakespeare. Rymer's criticism did not 
therefore strike him as being so nice and judicious as 
he had anticipated, though he took care to express his 
opinion in very guarded terms. "The ingenious," he 
wrote of the work, "are somewhat divided about some 
remarks in it, though they concur with Mr. Rhymer in 
many things, and generally acknowledge that he dis- 
covers a great deal of learning." For this reason he 
refrained from saying anything more of the volume. 
He concluded his observations, however, with a sug- 
gestive quotation from Quintilian about the necessity 
of using modesty and circumspection in the judgment 
of great authors, lest that accident which happens to 
so many should befall the critic of condemning what he 
fails to understand. This was delightfully and doubt- 
less intentionally vague. It could refer to any criticism 
Motteux might pass upon Rymer; it was meant to refer 
to Rymer's criticism of Shakespeare. 

Limited as are our means of ascertaining the general 
critical opinion of the seventeenth century, thereby 
often giving undue weight to what little accidentally 
reaches us, sufficient evidence exists to make it cer- 
tain that whatever opposition Rymer's first volume had 
encountered was far exceeded by that which waited 
upon the second. Dryden, whom in it he had once 
more flattered, expressed his dissent and, indeed, his 
disgust. These feelings appear in an undated letter 
written by him to Dennis, which was published by his 
correspondent — evidently with his own consent — in 

283 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

1696. His words are an early exemplification of the 
attitude which we shall see came to be taken in regard 
to Shakespeare by large numbers throughout the whole 
of the eighteenth century. They are further interesting 
for the deference which he continued to pay to Rymer 
himself and to his pedantic advocacy of the principles 
of art. In this place, however, they are of importance 
mainly because of the evidence they furnish as to 
the ill fortune which had waited upon this venture. 
"We know," wrote Dryden, "in spite of Mr. Rymer, 
that genius alone is a greater virtue (if I may so call 
it) than all other qualifications put together. You see 
what success this learned critic has found in the world 
after his blaspheming Shakespeare. Almost all the 
faults which he has discovered are truly there; yet 
who will read Mr. Rymer, or not read Shakespeare? 
For my own part, I reverence Mr. Rymer's learning, 
but I detest his ill-nature and his arrogance. I indeed, 
and such as I, have reason to be afraid of him, but 
Shakespeare has not." 

It is clear, indeed, that Rymer's attack met with but 
little favor. It naturally did Shakespeare no harm ; it 
did its author a good deal. Replies to it came forth at 
once; and replies, too, from men who in a measure 
sympathized with its views. Dennis intended to an- 
swer all its points; but he never went farther than a 
treatise, published soon after, entitled ' The Impartial 
Critic' This dealt, however, only with certain opin- 
ions of Rymer about the drama, — especially about the 
chorus, — and did not concern itself with those he had 
expressed about the dramatist. But while controvert- 

284 



SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY CONTROVERSIES 

ing the views of his opponent, he spoke of him respect- 
fully. Not so Gildou, who was the next to take np 
the discussion. In this same year he published what he 
called a vindication of Shakespeare in a letter addressed 
to Dryden. He set out with the avowed intention of 
treating Rymer as Rymer had treated Shakespeare. He 
pretty faithfully kept his word. He accused him of 
plagiarism, dulness, conceit, affectation of learning, 
and all the other impolite phrases which usually dis- 
tinguish the controversies of what is termed polite 
literature, — not forgetting, among other things, to 
bring in the comparison to a pug of Barbary. He 
made merry, in particular, with the scheme of a play 
suggested by the ' Persce ' of JEschylus, which the assail- 
ant of Shakespeare had drawn up in full and published 
in his volume. It was to be entitled ' The Invincible 
Armado. ' The subject outlined was one which Rymer 
expressed a desire that Dryden would try to fill up. If 
that poet did so, he was confident that the imitation of 
^schjdus, thus produced, would, to use his own pecu- 
liar language, "pit, box, and gallery, far beyond any- 
thing now in possession of the stage, however wrought 
up by the unimitable Shakespeare." It was easy to 
turn this whole project into ridicule ; for the plot Rymer 
had sketched furnished as convincing proof of his in- 
ability to plan a play as his ' Edgar ' had furnished of 
his inability to write one. 

But in this case both the criticiser and the man criti- 
cised were too alike in their nature to be kept perma- 
nently apart. There are few closer ties which bind 
men to each other than the possession of a common 

285 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

pedantry. In 1710 Gildon contributed two essays to 
a volume containing the poems of Shakespeare which 
Curll had published as a supplement to Rowe's edi- 
tion of the previous year. In the one upon the art, 
rise, and progress of the stage, he set out to lay down 
for the reader such principles as would enable him to 
distinsfuish the errors of the dramatist from his beauties. 
These, he tells us, were too much and too unjustly con- 
founded by the foolish bigotry of his blind and partial 
adorers. Like Dennis, he was anxious that readers 
should not be so captivated by the author that they 
should admire what they ought to condemn. So he 
kindly undertook to open their eyes. They were in 
the habit of setting Shakespeare above the ancients. 
A heresy of this sort Gildon, a devout worshipper of 
Sophocles and Euripides, could by no means suffer to 
go unrebuked. As a friend of the modern dramatist 
he pointed out the extreme danger of his being in 
future unjustly decried as a result of the reaction from 
this undue exaltation. He was led, in consequence, to 
explain and apologize for that attack to which he had 
himself virulently replied. "This unaccountable big- 
otry of the town to the very errors of Shakespeare," 
he wrote, " was the occasion of Mr. Rymer's criticisms, 
and drove him as far into the contrary extreme." Later 
he paid another and higher tribute to the merits of the 
man he had once assailed. 

The views of men like these are of no special value 
in themselves. They are, however, of a good deal of 
importance in the history of opinion. As testimony 
wrung from witnesses, in no instance partial, in one 

286 



SE VENTEENTH-CENTUR Y CONTR VERSIES 

actively hostile, tliey furnisli evidence, that cannot be 
impeached, of the hold which Shakespeare had at that 
time gained over the great body of his countrymen. The 
dissent that undoubtedly existed did not dare to be too 
outspoken. The passages which have been cited show 
that the expression of disparaging judgments about the 
dramatist himself or about his work was held in check 
by a general belief in his greatness, too firmly rooted to 
be unsettled and too powerful to be defied. It was this 
widespread and increasing admiration that prompted 
the special study of his writings which then began to be 
undertaken. The second essay of Gildon in this supple- 
mental volume to Rowe's edition consisted of critical 
remarks on the various plays. It is the first of a long 
line of comments and commentaries of the same general 
character, and is therefore of a certain historic interest. 
They are what might be expected from a man whose 
acquisition of what is called liberal education has had 
the not unexamj^led result of making him illiberal in 
his opinions. Yet it is right to say of them that if we 
are frequently entertained by the absurdity of his views, 
we are also occasionally struck by their good sense. 
He condemned most of the alterations to which Shake- 
speare's plays had been then subjected. He criticised 
in particular at some length and with just severity 
D'Avenant's and Dryden's version of ' The Tempest,' 
which at this time had supplanted the original. 

Gildon is very far, indeed, from being an illuminating 
guide; but he is no such contemptible character as 
Pope's references to him would lead us to suppose, and 
as, it must be added, his own utterances sometimes 

287 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

impel one to infer. His occasional pretentiousness 
makes him peculiarly offensive ; his seeming assumption 
that when he has pronounced an opinion, the last con- 
clusions of the human intellect have been reached. He 
further exemplified too constantly what he condemned. 
An abuser of poetasters, he was not only one himself, 
but he reserved his praise for writers not much above 
their grade. Not satisfied with regarding Dennis as a 
great critic, he made him out also " a poet of the first 
magnitude."^ His works abound with fulsome lauda- 
tions of the writings of the Duke of Buckinghamshire, 
especially of his ' Essay on Poetry. ' This very respect- 
able but long-forgotten production he quoted constantly 
and as reverently as if it were divinely inspired. A cen- 
surer of other alterers of Shakespeare, he perpetrated a 
peculiarly wretched one himself, — a version of ' Meas- 
ure for Measure, ' which was brought out in 1700. This 
last statement goes on the supposition that he wrote the 
pieces universally attributed to him ; for his name does 
not appear on the title-page of a single one of the five 
plays of which he is the reputed author. 

Attacks on Shakespeare of the coarse nature which 
Rymer's treatise exhibits were never made again. 
There is, indeed, so far as I know, but a single repeti- 
tion of this style of wholesale and elaborate deprecia- 
tion to be found in the whole of the century vv^hich 
followed. Yet, as it was the work of a woman, and 
furthermore of a woman born in America, it may be 
appropriate to give here a short account of the critic 
and her criticism. She was the daughter of Col. James 

1 Complete Art of Poetry, vol. i. p. 186. 
288 



SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY CONTROVERSIES 

Ramsay, lieutenant-governor of New York, and was 
born in 1720. In America she remained until 1735, 
when she went to London. There, owing to circum- 
stances, she was soon under the necessity of maintain- 
ing herself by her own exertions. In the course of 
events she married a gentleman named Lennox. This 
ought to have transferred from her own shoulders the 
burden of support. Apparently it did not. Mr. Len- 
nox seems to have been an inoffensive man, and may 
have been a particularly worthy one; but history has 
condescended to record of him no other achievement 
than his becoming the husband of Margaret Ramsay. 
She herself was a very miscellaneous writer. She pro- 
duced poems, plays, and pastorals, executed numberless 
translations from the French, edited a magazine, and 
was the author of several long-forgotten novels ; though 
it is perhaps an abuse of language to speak of that as 
having been forgotten which was never much remem- 
bered. To this last statement there is a single excep- 
tion. In 1752 she published a story, in imitation of 
the great work of Cervantes, entitled ' The Female 
Quixote, or the Adventures of Arabella.' It was a 
satire upon the interminable romances which had been 
the favorite literature of the two or three generations 
preceding. This production, which no one would read 
now save from a sense of duty, was fairly successful 
then. After a fashion it has preserved her name in lit- 
erary history. Occasionally it is spoken of even now as 
a work of genius by those who have not read it. 

It was during the years 1753 and 1754 that Mrs. 
Lennox brought out a work of a new kind entitled 
19 289 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

' Shakespeare Illustrated, or the Novels and Histories, 
on which the Plays of Shakespeare are Founded, col- 
lected and translated from the Original Authors with 
Critical Remarks. ' It consisted of three volumes and was 
dedicated to the Earl of Orrery. This dedication was 
written by her personal friend. Dr. Johnson, who has in 
fact been accused of responsibility for some of the criti- 
cism. The collection she made of sources is the first of a 
number of similar ones, which owe their existence purely 
to the interest inspired by the writings of the dramatist. 
It therefore serves the double purpose of exemplifying 
the growth of the poet's reputation and the way in 
which it was occasionally assailed. The information it 
furnished, though far from complete and long since 
superseded, was in general sufficiently satisfactory so 
far as it went. It was the critical observations with 
which the work was supplied, that have given it what- 
ever interest or distinction it now possesses. Rymer had 
led the way for them by asserting that ' Othello ' had 
been altered from the original of Cinthio in several 
particulars, but always for the worse. ^ In this style 
of criticism Mrs. Lennox left her predecessor far behind. 
She made it clear that in his adaptations from previous 
writers Shakespeare almost invariably fell below them. 
Whatever he touched he deformed. Anything that 
was particularly good in what he borrowed he con- 
trived to make bad; everything that was bad he changed 
to worse. He added to the events in the stories, upon 
which he founded his plays, useless incidents, unneces- 
sary characters, and absurd and improbable intrigues. 

1 Short View of Tragedy, p. 87. 
290 



SEVENTEENTH-CENTUR Y CONTROVERSIES 

Even when we admire the beauty of any new passage 
he introduced, we are usually struck by its inappro- 
priateness. Occasionally she relented; the tenderness 
of the woman prevailed over the severity of the judge. 
In a few instances guarded praise was given the drama- 
tist for improvement in certain details. Still, as a gen- 
eral rule, the epithets most frequently employed to 
describe the variations made by him from his originals 
were the adjectives "absurd" and "ridiculous." 

The work was one of which a good deal of the con- 
temporary periodical criticism spoke highly, — especially 
in the 'Gentleman's Magazine,' where Johnson pos- 
sessed influence. It enabled the reader, he was told, to 
make a just estimate of Shakespeare's merit, to com- 
prehend his resources and detect his faults. Above all, 
it showed clearly that he did not deserve the venera- 
tion with which he had been and still continued to be 
regarded. The many beauties of which he had been 
supposed to be the originator had been restored by the 
authoress to those from whom they had been borrowed. 
The plagiarist stood exposed.^ But outside of period- 
ical criticism, the attitude taken and the views expressed 
in the work met with but scant favor. It reacted, in- 
deed, injuriously at a later period upon Mrs. Lennox's 
own literary undertakings. The ill-success of her play 
of ' The Sister, ' which was brought out at Covent Gar- 
den in February, 1770, but withdrawn after the first 
night, was attributed by some to the indignation and 
resentment which her remarks upon Shakespeare had 

1 Gentleman's Magazine, toI. xxiii., June, 1753. See also vol. xxiy 
pp. 233, 311. 

291 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

aroused. Whether this be true or not, the publication 
of her work furnishes another exemplification of a mel- 
ancholy fact which, the longer we live, forces itself 
more persistently upon our observation. There is noth- 
ing more to be deplored in the fortunes of individuals 
than the hard lot that befalls some in having been born 
at the wrong time or in the wrong country. People are 
constantly met with now who really belong to the tenth 
century, and would have made a fitting and delightful 
acquisition to the society of that epoch. Its prevailing 
ideas would have been their ideas. Its way of looking at 
things would have been their way. Its partialities and 
prejudices, its particular likes and dislikes would have 
been theirs also. They are simply unfortunate in hav- 
ing been misplaced into a wholly unsuitable time. 
Such was the unhappy fate of Mrs. Lennox in regard 
to Shakespeare. She missed her century. Had she 
flourished in the period immediately following the 
Restoration, she would have found herself in a far more 
congenial atmosphere. She would have been enrolled 
as a distinguished figure in a set which would have sym- 
pathized with her opinions and exalted her uncommon 
learning and critical acumen. Had she in addition be- 
come Mrs. Rymer, the conjunction of these two stars, 
shooting madly from their spheres in the Shakespearean 
firmament, would have attracted the attention of ob- 
servers for all time. 



292 



CHAPTER VIII 

AliTERATIONS OF SHAKESPEARE' S PLAYS 

There is a well-known remark of Evelyn in his 
diary under the date of November 26, 1661. He had 
just attended a performance of ' Hamlet.' "But now," 
was his comment, " the old plays begin ^ to disgust this 
refined age, since his majesty's being so long abroad." 
These words mark the opening of the more than hun- 
dred years' war which Shakespeare was to carry on 
with the French theatre. At this early period the 
torrent of lewdness and profligacy, which Evelyn was 
later to deplore so frequently, had not yet burst forth 
with any violence. Decency was on the point of de- 
parting from the stage, but so far had not taken her 
flight. It was not, therefore, the spirit of the Eliza- 
bethan drama, alien as it was to that of the Restoration 
epoch, which was beginning to make its plays seem dis- 
tasteful. It was because of their supposed deficiencies 
in those characteristics which constitute true art. 

Of these a full account has been given in the preced- 
ing pages. We have seen that a number of rules were 
laid down for the conduct of the playwright, based not 
upon how men really thought and felt and acted, but 

1 Began in printed text. If written by Evelyn at the time, he must 
have intended begin ; if began was his word, the remark must have 
been a later addition to the diary. 

293 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

how they ought to think and feel and act, in order to 
preserve poetic decorum. The stage was to anticipate 
Mr. Turveydrop and become a model of deportment. 
The vogue of these rules became increasingly prevalent 
after the eighteenth century had opened. The ten- 
dency constantly manifested itself then to strengthen 
the rigor of the laws which regulated dramatic compo- 
sition. Naturally eighteenth-century plays conformed 
to the canons proclaimed by eighteenth-century critics. 
A large proportion of the tragedies of that time were 
absolutely faultless from the point of view of the clas- 
sical school. They were what was called regular. 
They observed the unities. They never outraged the 
feelings by pandering to that depraved taste which 
longed for occasional flashes of enjoyment to light 
up the atmosphere of gloom in which they were envel- 
oped. In many instances they carefully despatched the 
destined victims behind the scenes. Some of these 
productions were the work of able men, a very few of 
them of men possessed of no slight share of poetic if 
not of dramatic genius. Nothing, therefore, is so con- 
spicuous about the cleverness of these playwrights as 
the almost invariable success with which it enabled 
them to fail. Stately characters were brought by them 
upon the scene whose speeches were often characterized 
by elaborate and imposing versification; but somehow 
they seemed to lack vitality. It was the form of 
tragedy they possessed without its spirit. The events 
were few; the words describing them were many. The 
best that could be said of the best of them was that 
they avoided gross faults. If they did not stir the 

294 



ALTERATIONS OF SHAKESPEARE'S PLAYS 

heart of the spectator, they did not excite his laughter; 
and in no case could fault be found with them for the 
violation of a single one of those rules which by the 
common consent of critics were deemed essential to 
dramatic propriety. 

It was this last characteristic which constituted their 
great recommendation in the eyes of the followers of 
this school. Negative virtues were raised to the dig- 
nity of positive ones ; if not so in theory, they were in 
fact. To be free from faults was of more account than 
to be possessed of merits; and instead of seeking for 
the latter, writers for the stage were sedulously striving 
to guard against the former. Nothing of permanent 
value is ever produced by such methods; no interest 
long attaches to any work of any sort thus brought into 
being. A brake on a wheel is often a useful article; 
but it overrates a great deal its own importance when it 
fancies itself the wheel that runs the vehicle, still more 
when it fancies itself the motive power that runs the 
wheel. It was the concentration of the care and thought 
of the playwrights upon the observance of these con- 
ventional rules which more than any other one thing 
contributed to render their productions tame and life- 
less. Tragedy was the main sufferer by this practice : 
comedy got along better. Some of the works belonging 
to the former chanced occasionally to receive for a time 
an artificial life from the excellence of the acting ; but 
they were rarely heard of later, even when apparent suc- 
cess had crowned their original representation. This 
was their usual fate ; it is not too much to assert that it 
was usually their merited fate. Even the best of them 

295 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

can hardly be spoken of as any longer really known. 
To most men of the present day the tragic stage of the 
eighteenth century is an undiscovered country ; and in 
general it may be said that the unwary traveller who by 
any chance is led to visit its confines takes precious 
good care never to return to them again, if that journey 
can possibly be avoided. 

To the men of that age, however, there always re- 
mained one consolation. The result of their efforts might 
be dreadful ; but still it was art. Upon that fact they 
perpetually felicitated themselves. To us the artificial 
beauties, if they can be termed beauties, which were 
secured by their methods, seem very much like the 
rings which men and women of savage nations thrust 
through their lips and noses. They are inconvenient to 
the owner to wear ; to admire them requires a perverted 
taste in the beholder. But not so felt those who at the 
beginning of the Restoration epoch announced that at 
last the reign of taste had arrived. To some of them 
Shakespeare was peculiarly offensive. Certain of them 
were so repelled by his assumed lawlessness that they 
were hardly disposed to regard him as worthy of con- 
sideration at all. This was particularly true of the 
school which celebrated Ben Jonson as the greatest 
writer of the preceding age and the greatest comic 
writer of all time. It was not large in numbers, but it 
was somewhat vociferous; and as there belonged to it 
several persons of social and literary position, it exerted 
for a time considerable influence. It existed, indeed, 
long before the Restoration. It is manifest, also, that 
Jonson himself, with all his undoubted admiration for 

296 



ALTERATIONS OF SHAKESPEARE'S PLAYS 

the genius of his friend, was not entirely exempt from 
emotions of envy at the high estimate in which he was 
held, and did not refrain from exhibiting what he doubt- 
less deemed righteous indignation at the undeserved 
praise which was bestowed upon Shakespeare for what 
were in his eyes manifest defects. It was inevitable 
that sentiments of this sort should be echoed more or 
less ; and usually more, by that never very limited body 
of judges who, without any definite views of their own, 
have to an almost heroic extent the courage of other 
people's convictions. ' 

Unquestionably there were even at this early period 
dissenters from the general tribute of admiration which 
from the first was paid to Shakespeare, though com- 
paratively few evidences of the fact have come down 
to our time. We can find the feeling indicated, how- 
ever, in the words of a writer like William Cartwright 
of Oxford University, who died in 1643, at the age of 
thirty-two. For reasons which men of the present day 
find it difficult to comprehend, he was regarded and 
celebrated by his contemporaries as a person of extraor- 
dinary abilities. The view is certainly not borne out 
by the very respectable plays he left behind ; for he was 
a dramatist before he became a divine. Besides these 
he wrote a number of poems in which he was usually 
successful in combining brevity with tediousness. Two 
of them were upon Fletcher. Cartwright was one of the 
class of men who cannot exalt one person without dis- 
paraging another. He accordingly went out of his way 
to give us a specimen of his critical judgment in the 
following lines : — 

297 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

" Shakespeare to thee was dull, whose best jest lies 
In the ladies' questions and the fool's replies ; 
Old-fashioned wit which walked from town to town 
In turned hose, which our fathers called the clown ; 
Whose wit our nice times would obsceneness call, 
And which made bawdry pass for comical : 
Nature was all his art, thy vein was free 
As his, but without his scurrility." 

But though feelings of this kind existed both before 
and after the Restoration, we should be led into a gross 
error if we supposed that they existed on a large scale. 
That small number who, because their taste differs 
from that of the majority, enjoy the pleasing consola- 
tion of believing that it is much better than that of the 
majority, may have studiously depreciated Shakespeare ; 
but they never seriously affected the general estimate 
of his reputation. Much more numerous and much 
more influential was the body of those who attributed 
to him the possession of great excellences mingled with 
great defects. Theirs was an attitude, according to 
their own opinion, of absolute impartiality. They con- 
sequently spoke of him in a tone of mingled pity and 
patronage. It could not be denied that he was a man 
of vast genius. It was nevertheless a painful fact that 
the barbarism of his time had prevented him from attain- 
ing to those heights of taste upon which they themselves 
were complacently perched. They pardoned, though 
they could not approve. This was the prevalent utter- 
ance of the years that followed immediately upon the 
return of Charles. It is sometimes expressed kindly, 
sometimes contemptuously. But whether well or ill 
disposed, it never neglected the duty of pointing out 

298 



ALTERATIONS OF SHAKESPEARE'S PLAYS 

the faults of the dramatist and of holding up to scorn 
those who denied their existence. It is one of the 
revenges produced by the whirligig of time that the 
Restoration period is now regarded as having degenerate 
taste, because it held that the taste which expressed un- 
bounded admiration of Shakespeare was degenerate. 

It was their recognition of his excellences in various 
ways, combined with their perception of his deficiences, 
which led men to set about those alterations of his 
works which went on for a good deal more than a hun- 
dred years after the Restoration. It is needless to add 
that these were undertaken ostensibly in the interests of 
art. To a certain extent the pretence was justified by the 
changes made. Efforts were put forth to bring the plays 
as far as possible under the law of the unities. The 
comic parts were usually cut out of the serious pieces. 
Low characters were dropped. To this eesthetic motive 
was frequently added, according to the professions of 
those engaged in this work, reverence for Shakespeare 
himself. It was their regard for him, it was their appre- 
ciation of his surpassing merits, which had induced them 
to enter upon the task of revealing his greatness to an 
incredulous world. Not a single one of these adapters, 
even the very wretchedest of them, doubted for a mo- 
ment that his work was a decided improvement upon 
the original. No self-effacing modesty caused them 
to hide their consciousness of the credit to which they 
were entitled for having conferred upon Shakespeare 
the benefit of their alterations. This feeling of benevo- 
lent superiority they extended to the great French 
authors, whether writers of tragedy or comedy, whom 

299 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

they plundered. Mrs. Centlivre — to select one instance 
out of many — admits that her play of ' Love's Contriv- 
ance ' is partly taken from Moliere ; but she is bold 
enough to affirm, she assures us, that it has not suffered 
in the translation. Indeed she remarks that whenever 
she found the style of the original too poor, she "en- 
deavored to give it a turn." If during the reign of 
French taste and deference to French dramatists men 
could fancy that they had improved upon Molifere, 
Corneille, and Racine, it is little wonder that they 
should think they had improved upon Shakespeare. 
His works, they conceded, abounded in master-strokes 
of genius ; but they lacked more or less of that happy 
art which it became the pleasing duty of the adapter to 
supply. It was not unusual for them to talk the lan- 
guage of discoverers. They had stumbled, as it were, 
upon a mine of gold. It was encumbered with dross, 
it was mixed with impurities; from these it was their 
business to set it free, to refine it, so that it should 
shine in its native lustre. 

All these states of mind we know positively, because 
the authors of these adaptations disclose them. I have 
already given the self-satisfied comments with which 
Ravenscroft introduced his horrible additions to a hor- 
rible play.i Tate, in the dedication of his version of 
' Lear, ' informed the friend to whom it was addressed, 
that the original was a heap of jewels, unstrung and 
unpolished, and yet so dazzling in their disorder that 
he soon perceived he had got hold of a treasure. Again, 
in the prologue to his alteration of ' Coriolanus ' he 

1 See p. 196. 
300 



ALTERATIONS OF SHAKESPEARE'S PLAYS 

expressed a feeling of confidence in the success of his 
play because it was based upon the previous work of 
Shakespeare. His business it had been to build upon 
the massive foundation of his predecessor the artfully- 
contrived superstructure which should remove or hide 
its manifest deformities. As he tells us himself, 

" He only ventures to make gold from ore, 
And turn to money what lay dead before." 

In the preface to his alteration of ' Troilus and Cressida, ' 
which he mistakenly fancied an early play, Dryden ob- 
served that since there appeared in some places of this 
tragedy the admirable genius of the author, he had 
undertaken to remove the rubbish under which many 
excellent thoughts lay wholly buried. We shall have 
occasion to notice other manifestations of this same 
serene satisfaction. Occasionally a fear was expressed 
that there was danger of going too far. Dennis, who 
was at heart a most genuine admirer of Shakespeare, 
exhibited this feeling in the alteration he made of 
' Coriolanus.' He tells us in his prologue that his 
production is a mere grafting upon the work of the 
great dramatist, 

" In whose original we may descry, 
Where master-strokes in wild confusion lie, 
Here brought to as much order as we can 
Eeduce those beauties upon Shakespeare's plan ; 
And from his plan we dar'd not to depart, 
Lest nature should be lost in quest of art : 
And art had been attained with too much cost, 
Had Shakespeare's beauties in the search been lost." 

But usually no dread of this sort disturbed the heart 
of the adapter. So between devotion to art and regard 

301 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

for the memory of the poet, the magnificent structures 
which Shakespeare had reared furnished for more than 
a century employment to a host of dramatic carpenters, 
masons, hodcarriers, and other literary mechanics, not 
to repair them indeed, but to repair their conceptions 
of them. 

During the fifty years which followed the Restoration 
twenty-one of Shakespeare's plays appeared in some sort 
of altered form.^ Five of them were during the time 

1 The following is a list of the plays altered or adapted from 
Shakespeare during the fifty years following the Restoration. They 
are given according to the date of their publication. This in the case 
of several, especially the earlier ones, is sometimes quite different 
from the date of their production : — 

1. The Tempest; or the Enchanted Island, by Dryden and D'Avenant, 1670. 

2. The Law against Lovers (Measure for Measure), by D'Avenant, 1673. 

3. Macbeth, 1673. 

4. The Tempest, made into an opera, by Shadwell, 1673. 

5. Macbeth, 1674. 

6. The Mock-Tempest; or the Enchanted Castle, by Duffett, 1675. For 'The 

Mock-Tempest ' of the title-page, the heading of the play itself is ' The 
New Tempest.' 

7. Timon of Athens, by Shadwell, 1678. 

8. Troilus and Cressida, or Truth Found too Late, by Dryden, 1679. 

9. History and Fall of Caius Marius (Romeo and Juliet), by Otway, 1680. 

10. King Lear, by Tate, 1681. 

11. The History of King Richard the Second (acted at the Theatre Royal, under 

the name of ' The Sicilian Usurper '), by Tate, 1681. 

12. Henry VL, The First Part; with the Murder of Humphrey, Duke of 

Gloucester (Henry VI., Part II.), by Crowne, 1681. 

13. Henry VI. , The Second Part; or the Miseries of Civil War (Henry VL, 
Parts II. and III.), by Crowne, 1680. 

14. The Ingratitude of a Commonwealth (Coriolanus), by Tate, 1682. 

15. The Injured Princess, or the Fatal Wager (Cymbeline), bj' Durfey, 1682. 

16. Titus Andronicus, or the Rape of Lavinia, by Ravenscroft, 1687. 

17. The Fairy Queen, an opera (Midsummer Night Dream), 1692. 

18. Sawney, the Scott (Taming of the Shrew), by Lacey, 1698. 

19. King Henry IV., Part I., by Betterton, 1700. 

20. King Henry IV., Part II., by Betterton (not published till 1719). 

21. King Richard III., by Colley Gibber, 1700. 

302 



ALTERATIONS OF SHAKESPEARE'S PLAYS 

subjected more than once to this transmogrifying process 
— for transforming is too respectable a word to apply to 
the operation that took place. Before the end of the 
eighteenth century about fifty other alterations were 
added to the number. It does not fall within the prov- 
ince of this work to give any account of these versions, 
save as they illustrate the influences which operated to 
produce them. For while the plea set up in justification 
of the changes effected was the desire to make the plays 
conform to what was then called the purer taste of the 
age, or what we should call its want of taste, this was 
by no means the sole motive that led to their altera- 
tion. One was an agency which naturally never ceased 
to act, so long as work of this character could be ex- 
pected to meet with favor. The dramatic author was 
always intent upon the production of a new play. Nec- 
essarily he was often hard put to it for matter and sub- 
ject. By him the dramas of the Elizabethan period 
were looked upon as a sort of quarry, to which in case 
of need or hurry he could turn for raw material to 
work up into pieces which would have the charm of 
novelty. What he could borrow saved him so much 

22. Measure for Measure, or Beauty the Best Advocate, by Gildon, 1700. 

23. The Jew of Venice (The Merchant of Venice) by George Granville (Lord 

Lansdowne), 1701. 

24. The Comical Gallant; or the Amours of Sir John Falstaff (Merry Wives of 

Windsor), by Dennis, 1702. 

25. Love Betrayed, or the Agreeable Disappointment (Twelfth Night), by 

Burnaby, 1703. 

In addition, in 1662, ' Romeo and Juliet 'was altered into a tragi- 
comedy by James Howard. It was never printed. The alteration 
of ' Macbetli ' — one of 1673, and on a larger scale in 1674 — is attributed 
by Downes, in his ' Roscius Anglicanus,' to D'Avenant. 

303 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

labor. Of the dramatists of this earlier age Shake- 
speare was by no means the only sufferer; but he was 
much the greatest. 

Pressure of this sort seems to have been the principal 
motive which led men to add new scenes and characters 
to certain of Shakespeare's plays, or to piece out from 
his independent compositions of their own. In one of 
the first of these alterations this process was carried 
to an extreme. This was D'Avenant's ' Law against 
Lovers,' produced as early as February, 1662. Into 
it he melted the two plays of ' Measure for Measure ' 
and ' Much Ado about Nothing, ' with numerous addi- 
tions of his own ; or perhaps it would be more correct 
to say, that the episode of Benedict and Beatrice was 
extracted from the latter and inserted with great varia- 
tions into the former. How violent was the change, 
and how inferior the plot, can be guessed from the fact 
that the character of Mariana was discarded entirely, 
and that Isabella, after refusing to yield to Angelo's 
attempt upon her virtue is married to him at the con- 
clusion by the order of the duke. There was also a 
great deal of modification of the language of Shake- 
speare even where it purported to be retained. The 
result of this combination is that all the pathos of the 
one play vanishes and all the wit of the other, while 
the whole is written in the most villanous blank verse 
that ever tried to palm itself off as poetry instead of 
prose. Perhaps even a more extraordinary performance 
of this nature were the scenes taken from ' Romeo and 
Juliet,' which Otway introduced into his play entitled 
' The History and Fall of Caius Marius,' brought out 

304 



ALTERATIONS OF SHAKESPEARE'S PLAYS 

in 1680. Never was there a more incompatible mixture 
of blood-letting and love-making. Into the stormy 
strife of the Roman civil war, with its proscriptions 
and massacres, was intruded the story of love and hate 
which in Shakespeare's hands had become the purest 
embodiment of the fusion of passion and poetry. The 
incongruity takes on the air of the grotesque, when we 
find the son of Caius Marius in the place of Romeo, 
and Sulla in that of the Count Paris who is the des- 
tined husband of Juliet. 

But the most offensive, as it was the most famous of 
the alterations which were made for the sake of bring- 
ing out a novelty rather than of repairing any supposed 
artistic imperfections in the original, was that wrought 
by D'Avenant and Dryden upon ' The Tempest.' This 
play is one of the most delightful of Shakespeare's 
creations. To the audiences of his own time it must 
have had a charm which we may comprehend but can 
imperfectly appreciate. The romance of worlds as yet 
unexplored was suggested by it, the imagination was / 

captivated by the portrayal of sights and sounds which 
men hesitated to believe and yet did not venture wholly 
to deny. No impressions of this nature will be con- 
veyed even remotely by the adaptation. It excites alter- 
nate feelings of amusement and irritation. The former 
state of mind is largely due to what Dryden termed 
D'Avenant's "excellent contrivance" of doubling the 
personages of the play. Miranda has a sister called 
Dorinda. Caliban too has a sister called Sycorax. 
Ariel is likewise furnished with "a gentle spirit," as 
he describes her, who goes under the name of Milcha, 
20 305 



»wg^5c 



I 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

and who with fine feminine devotion has been waiting 
fourteen years for the day of his deliverance. As if 
these additions were not enough, there was supplied as 
a counterpart to the daughters of Prospero a young 
man who had never seen a woman, though he had lived 
on the same island with two of them until he had 
reached manhood. All this appears much more ridicu- 
lous in the play than in any account which can be given 
of it ; but there is also contained in it a good deal to 
arouse indignation. The instinctive delicacy, the in- 
born purity of Miranda, as depicted in the original, 
utterly disappears in the part she is made to assume 
in the alteration. Her conversation with her sister 
Dorinda is of the kind that might have gone on be- 
tween two maids of honor of the court of Charles II. ; 
but however true to the life then lived, it was certainly 
not true to any life worth living. The alteration is 
really little better than a travesty. A lower deep was 
reached when it in turn was travestied in a play in 
which Prospero was made keeper of the Bridewell 
prison, and much of Shakespeare's language converted 
to vilest use. 

/^Another agency at work in bringing about these 
alterations was the desire to gratify that fondness for 
spectacular entertainment which has always existed in 
the heart of man, and it may safely be predicted will 
always continue to exist. There was nothing new about 
it at the era of the Restoration. Complaint on this 
very score can be found in that earlier period in which 
we now regard the theatre as being in its highest glory. 
But it received a powerful impetus after the return of 

306 



ALTERATIONS OF SHAKESPEARE'S PLAYS 

Charles, in consequence of the introduction of movable 
scenery. This afforded additional facilities for the 
production of spectacular effect. Its attractions were 
further increased by the addition of song and dance, 
especially as the accompaniment of an inserted masque. 
The desire of seeing shows of this sort is so inherent 
in human nature that it is useless to rail against its 
manifestation. But what astounds the modern reader, 
and occasionally calls forth his indignation, is the 
dreadful inappropriateness of introducing these spec- 
tacles into the sort of plays in which they frequently 
occur. The attempt to interrupt the action of a well- 
constructed comedy with impertinent matter of this 
kind is bad enough; but to arrest the progress of a 
tragedy in such a way is little short of a literary crime. 
Yet this was not unfrequently done by the very men 
who posed as the champions of art; by some indeed 
who professed themselves shocked at the introduction 
into serious pieces of comic scenes and low personages. 

Elaborate entertainments of this sort were brousrht 
into D'Avenant's ' Law of Love ' just described, and 
one female character was added for little other pur- 
pose than to give occasion for singing and dancing. 
These exhibitions were carried out on a much grander 
scale in the alteration of * Measure for Measure ' by 
Gildon, which appeared in 1700. The practice had its 
worst, because its most inappropriate, exemplification in 
D'Avenant's version of ' Macbeth.' Into this sternest 
of tragedies were introduced music and dancing. Yet 
there can be no question that these additions were 
received favorably. Pepys, who saw the piece acted 

307 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

several times, was impressed by their appropriateness. 
He tells us that ' Macbeth ' " appears a most excellent 
play in all respects, but especially in divertisement, 
though it be a deep tragedy ; which is a strange perfec- 
tion in a tragedy, it being most proper here and suit- 
able."^ This change of its character affected directly 
or indirectly the manner in which the play was repre- 
sented for a long period following. It was not indeed 
until the middle of the last century that its baleful 
influence was shaken off altogether. In 1847, at the 
Sadler's Wells Theatre, then under the management of 
the actor Samuel Phelps, the witches were made, for the 
first time in nearly two centuries, to appear in their true 
character as hags, instead of good-looking singers. 

To this same desire for spectacular exhibitions we owe 
the transformation of several of Shakespeare's plays into 
operas, which at that time meant dramas in which sing- 
ing, dancing, and recitative were the main features. It 
was a practice which was kept up during a good part of 
the eighteenth century. But there was another agency 
of quite different character at work in producing these 
j alterations. This was the aversion to the tragical con- 
I elusion of tragedy. Sometimes taking the name of poetic 
justice, it assumed that it was the representative of a 
much higher art. In reality it was based upon that 
characteristic of human nature which prefers a fortunate 
ending of any story said or sung to a sad one, and which 
at the present day leads many to object to a novel ending 
unhappily. The feeling showed itself early. One of 
the very first alterations of Shakespeare was made in 

1 Pepys's Diary, Jan. 7, 1667. 
308 



ALTERATIONS OF SHAKESPEARE'S PLAYS 

accordance with its demands. ' Romeo and Juliet ' was 
transformed into a tragi-comedy in which the lives of 
the hero and heroine were preserved. This version 
— which has not come down — was the work of the 
Honorable James Howard, one of Dryden's numerous 
brothers-in-law. The conflicting claims of the parti- 
sans of weal and woe were satisfied at the time by the 
management of the theatre. The drama was acted for 
a while, — one day with its original tragical ending, 
the day following with the new and happy one.^ This 
same aversion to a sorrowful conclusion was one of the 
agencies which contributed to maintain the hold of 
Tate's version of ' King Lear ' upon the stage. Even 
Colman, when he rejected in his own alteration the 
love -scenes, did not venture to restore the tragic ending. 
That was not done until 1823, when the fifth act was 
played by Kean as it was written by Shakespeare. 

A more important agency than any yet mentioned 
has just been indicated. It was the desire to intro- 
duce a story of love. Both during the Restoration 
period and later it played a prominent part in the 
alterations which were made of Shakespeare's plays. If 
in them there were no love scenes, they were supplied ; 
if there were love scenes already, they were supplied 
with more. This was a practice which began early 
and continued late. It was a peculiarly incongruous 
mixture that was produced when this passion was made 
to operate in the Histories. Crowne, who unblushingly 
stole no small portion of his second part of ' Henry VI. ' 
from "the divine Shakespeare," as he termed him, and 

1 Downes's Koscius Anglicanus, p. 16 (Knight's reprint, 1886). 
309 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

then did not blush to deny that he stole anything,^ 
introduced into his alteration a good deal of love- 
making, in which Warwick, the king-maker, Edward 
Plantagenet, his future queen. Lady Grey, and a new 
character, Lady Eleanor Butler, all have a share. It 
is as needless as it is gratifying to observe that not a 
hint for these scenes can be found in the original. The 
demand for this sort of emotional stimulant seems to 
have been urgent and continuous. It can be found 
generally in the alterations made in the eighteenth cen- 
tury. Even Sheffield, Duke of Buckinghamshire, when 
he divided ' Julius Csesar ' into two plays in order to pre- 
serve his darling unities — and even then succeeded but 
imperfectly — could not resist the temptation to inter- 
sperse some love dialogue in the midst of the political 
action which was going on. 

Such practices were due largely, as we have seen, to 
the example set by the French stage. Under its influ- 
ence love had come to be considered essential to tragedy. 
Indeed the introduction of this passion seems to have 
been the main reason why Shadwell felt himself justi- 
fied in boasting that he had made ' Timon ' into a play. 
In Shakespeare the only female characters in that drama 
are the two mistresses of Alcibiades. They too are 
brought in for no other purpose than to give additional 
vigor and extension to the curses of the misanthrope. 
There is no suggestion of any love on their part except 
the love of money; and they come and go in a single 

1 "For by his feeble skill 't is built alone, 

The divine Shakespeare did not lay one stone." 

Prologue to Crowne's * Miseries of Civil War.' 
310 



ALTERATIONS OF SHAKESPEARE'S PLAYS 

scene. No wonder that Shadwell did not consider such 
a production a play. He would have been unfaithful to 
the Restoration ideal, had he treated the passion so dis- 
dainfully. Accordingly he endowed the piece with two 
female characters, — one a discarded mistress who re- 
mains faithful to Timon throughout; the other an 
expectant bride who deserts him the moment when 
calamity comes. Little more than a hundred years 
afterward Cumberland improved upon this example. 
In his version of the tragedy, which was brought out in 
1771, he furnished Timon with a daughter, with whom 
Alcibiades is in love, while a more wealthy personage 
appears also as a suitor for her hand. 

There can be no doubt that the introduction of these 
love scenes contributed a good deal to the success, at 
least to the temporary success, of some of these altera- 
tions. The most marked illustration of the benefit of 
this kind derived from them is seen, as has already 
been pointed out, in the remodelling which ' Lear ' 
underwent at the hand of Tate. By that author him- 
self it was regarded as a master stroke. Tate particu- 
larly prided himself upon having had the good fortune 
to light upon an expedient which was to rectify what 
was wanting in the regularity and probability of the 
play, as Shakespeare wrote it. This was to run through 
the whole a series of love scenes between Edgar and 
Cordelia, who never exchanged word in the original. 
Them accordingly he made attached to each other from 
the outset. The advantages of this course, he him- 
self assures us, were obvious. It gave an air of prob- 
ability to Cordelia's indifference and Lear's answer. It 

311 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

further supplied a generous motive for Edgar's disguise. 
In Shakespeare it was nothing but a poor pitiful shift 
to save his own life, — an object simply unnatural and 
contemptible to be kept in view by the hero of a 
tragedy. In Tate's version it was elevated to a noble 
design to be of service to Cordelia. 

Deride it and despise it as we justly may, the intro- 
duction of love into this tragedy found favor, as a 
general rule, with both the public and the critics of the 
eighteenth century. To it more than to any one cause 
was due the permanence of the hold which this altera- 
tion kept upon the stage. Garrick, who revived the 
play in 1756, restored a good deal of the language of 
the original; for some of its finest passages had been 
botched by Tate most scandalously. But he retained 
much which might better have been left out. Nor, in 
particular, did he venture to discard the love-scenes. 
He hesitated, but finally decided that the risk was too 
great to run,^ Davies indeed tells us that though he 
had witnessed the representation of the play twenty 
or thirty times, he had never seen Edgar and Cordelia 
leave the stage after their unexpected interview — as 
exhibited in the third act of Tate's version — without 
the accompaniment of rapturous applause from the 
spectators.^ Garrick might possibly have succeeded 
in restoring the original ; but what he failed to do it 
was not in the power of an inferior man to accom- 
plish. This was shown by the fate of Colman's version, 
which was produced in February, 1768. In it he threw 
out the whole episode of love. " ' Romeo,' ' Cymbeline,' 

1 Davies, Dramatic Miscellanies, vol. ii. p. 264. ^ ibii 

312 



ALTERATIONS OF SHAKESPEARE'S PLAYS 

' Every Man in his Humor,' " lie wrote, " have 
long been refined from the dross that hindered them 
from being current with the public; and I have now 
endeavored to purge the tragedy of ' Lear ' of the alloy 
of Tate which has so long been suffered to debase it." 
But his alteration never superseded the one which had 
held the stage for nearly a hundred years. It met with 
moderate success at its first appearance, and after Col- 
man left the management of Covent Garden Theatre 
in 1774, it seems to have been di'opped entirely. 

These were the main motives which under the guise 
of devotion to art led to the changes which were made 
in Shakespeare's plays. It shows the growth both of 
knowledge and of appreciation of his works that with 
the progress of time these attempts became more and 
more distasteful to the public. Custom had caused cer- 
tain of the old alterations to be accepted with equanimity, 
and in some instances with favor ; but new experiments 
upon the integrity of his writings came to be regarded 
almost invariably with dislike. If any one of them 
secured success at all, it was owing to its having been 
brought out under exceptional conditions. Garrick was 
indeed the only writer who could venture to make 
changes with much hope of approval ; and that was 
not really due to the changes, but to his own wonder- 
ful acting. The aversion felt to these proceedings was 
not due, as the classicists tried to persuade themselves, 
to blind unreasoning devotion, but to a steadily in- 
creasing perception of the fact that Shakespeare was 
not only a great poet but also a great artist ; and that 
these tamperings with his text, which had once been 

313 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

SO common, were of the nature of efforts to improve 
the purity of gold by mixing with it a due quantity of 
brass. As we have seen, not all the influence of Gar- 
rick nor the magnetic charm of his acting could rec- 
oncile the public to his alteration of ' Hamlet.' If it 
would not accept his essay, naturally inferior men fared 
worse. Their versions were often not acted, or, if acted, 
met usually with disfavor. If they succeeded at all, it 
was owing to circumstances entirely independent of any 
approval by the public of the changes which had been 
made. 

CoUey Gibber, tempted by the success of his altera- 
tion of 'Richard III,' set out many years after upon 
the task of remodelling ' King John.' The revision was 
offered to the manager of Drury Lane in 1735. But 
times had changed. The criticism which the project 
called forth irritated the actor, and led him to withdraw 
the piece from consideration. This version was not 
published until 1745; yet something of its character 
must have become known at the very time in which it 
was written. Two years later Fielding made both 
Gibber and his proposed action the subject of satire in 
his piece entitled ' The Historical Register for the Year 
1736.' In this play he brought in the adapter under 
the name of Ground Ivy, and represented him as declar- 
ing that it was a maxim of his, while he was at the head 
of theatrical affairs, that no play, though ever so good, 
could do without alteration. Shakespeare was a very 
pretty fellow, he was represented as remarking, and 
had said some things which only wanted a little of his 
licking into shape to do well enough. " For instance," 

314 



ALTERATIONS OF SHAKESPEARE'S PLAYS 

he continued, " in the play before us " — which was 
* King John ' — " the bastard Faulconbridge is a most 
effeminate character, for which reason I would cut him 
out, and put all his sentiments in the mouth of Con- 
stance, who is so much properer to speak them." When 
the play was published later, it turned out that this 
was a change which had actually been carried into ef- 
fect. It was impossible for even the imagination of 
Fielding to have foreseen that anything so preposterous 
could ever have occurred to a rational human being ; 
he must have known it at the time as an actual fact. 

Furthermore, in the play just mentioned. Fielding 
incidentally gave the opinion of alterations, which was 
beginning to be widely entertained by the men who 
were not dominated by the views that prevailed among 
the classicists. It is expressed by the supposed author 
of the piece, who is one of the characters taking part in 
the action. "As Shakespeare," says he, "is already 
good enough for people of taste, he must be altered 
to the palates of those who have none." Later, when 
the same character is asked if he intended to burlesque 
the poet, he replies in a way that conveys clearly 
Fielding's contempt for the changes which had been 
made in the past. " I have too great an honor for Shake- 
speare," he says, " to think of burlesquing him, and to 
be sure of not burlesquing him, I will never attempt to 
alter him for fear of burlesquing him by accident, as 
perhaps some others have done." Again, in this play 
Fielding put in the mouth of Theophilus Gibber — who 
appears under the name of Pistol — another satirical 
reference to his father's adaptation which has just been 

315 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

mentioned, and the fate which would have befallen it, 

had it actually been brought upon the stage. " Such 

was the hiss in which great John should have expired," 

Pistol is represented as exclaiming. Pope borrowed the 

idea, and in his revised ' Dunciad ' of 1743 commented 

upon the withdrawal of the piece in the following 

line : — 

" King John in silence modestly expires." ^ 

In spite of all this Gibber found his opportunity at 
last. Early in 1745 the country was going through 
one of those periodical outbreaks against Roman Ca- 
tholicism to which Protestant England has always been 
subject. It had assumed just then an aggravated form 
in consequence of the threatened invasion of the king- 
dom by the Young Pretender, and the dreaded return 
to the throne of the Stuart line. Taking advantage 
of the occasion, Gibber brought out at Covent Garden 
his alteration under the title of ' Papal Tyranny in 
the Reign of King John.' It is a pretty difficult 
achievement to convert that monarch into a hero, still 
more difficult to convert him into a Christian hero ; 
but patriotism has been successful in accomplishing even 
more formidable tasks. At this time, too, it was assisted 
by the feeling certain to be prevalent in an English 
audience that the Pope should be thoroughly and insult- 
ingly defied. Gibber fulfilled the requirement nobly, 
and received his reward. Popular excitement gave the 
play the then respectable run of ten nights ; just as later 
in the year when the threatened invasion had become a 
reality, it caused the revival of ' The Non- juror ' in both 

1 Dunciad, book i. line 252. 
316 



ALTERATIONS OF SHAKESPEARE'S PLAYS 

houses. Gibber however attributed his success to no 
adventitious circumstances, but to the inherent merit of 
the changes he had introduced into the performance. 
In his dedication of the play to Lord Chesterfield he 
rivalled the modesty of the earlier adapters by assert- 
ing that he had made it more like a play than when 
he found it in Shakespeare. When the cause of the 
popularity of the piece passed away, the effect dis- 
appeared also. It seems never to have been heard 
of again. 

It would be a mistake to assume that attempts of 
this nature had generally ceased by the middle of the 
eighteenth century. On the contrary they continued 
to be common. Still the hesitation with which projects 
of this kind were put forth becomes noticeable, as well 
as the apologetic attitude with which the slightest 
thought of reflecting upon the poet is disclaimed. 
Hawkins, for instance, one of the most unpoetical of 
the professors of poetry at Oxford, produced an al- 
teration of 'Cymbeline,' In his preface he professed 
that he felt it an honor to tread in the steps of 
Shakespeare and to imitate his style with the rever- 
ence and humility of a son. This particular play, he 
told us, was one of the most irregular written by the 
dramatist. Still its defects, or rather its superfluities, 
were more than equalled by beauties and excellences 
of various kinds. All he therefore aimed to do was 
to reduce it as far as possible to the laws of the unities. 
In liis additions he assured us he sought to copy the 
vigor, the diction, the glowing vein of the mighty mind 
which had produced the original ; but likewise he had 

317 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

presumed to regulate and modernize the plot of the 
play. As he tells us in the prologue, 

*' For other points our new adventurer tries 
The bard's luxuriant plan to modernize : 
And by the rules of ancient art refine 
The same eventful pleasing bold design." 

This alteration was brought out at Covent Garden in 
February, 1759. It met with no success. The spectators 
had ceased to desire Shakespeare's work to be refined 
by the rules of ancient art. The version " after freez- 
ing one or two thin audiences sunk into oblivion." ^ 
The classicists themselves came at last to recognize 
that this sort of work would no longer do. Cumber- 
land's alteration of 'Timon,' which appeared in 1771, 
pleased the critics, at least some of them. They praised 
him for retrenching the extravagances and lopping off 
the excrescences which had disfigured the original. But 
though it pleased them, it did not please the audience. 
Garrick confessed to one of his correspondents that it 
had not succeeded to his wish.^ It ran counter to the 
prejudices of the public, or, as one of the reviewers 
was sorrowfully constrained to admit, to " the devout 
reverence in which even the faults of Shakespeare are 
generally held."^ 

We have now reached a point where it is necessary 
to consider these alterations not merely with reference 
to the agencies which brought them into being, but 
to their merit as works of art contrasted with their 

1 European Magazine, vol. i. p. 358. 

2 Garrick Correspondence, vol. i. p. 448. 

3 Monthly Review, vol. xlv. p. 507, December, 1771. 

318 



ALTERATIONS OF SHAKESPEARE'S PLAYS 

originals. Volumes could be filled with exemplifi- 
cations of their absurdities. A few can only be 
mentioned here, taken mainly from those plays which 
longest held possession of the stage. Three of these 
in particular met with special success, and their later 
fortunes therefore deserve mention. They are Colley 
Gibber's version of 'Richard III,' which was brought 
out in 1700 ; Nahum Tate's version of ' Lear,' which 
was brought out in 1681 ; and Lord Lansdowne's ver- 
sion of the 'Merchant of Venice,' which was brought 
out in 1701. This last was the shortest-lived of the 
three. It kept exclusive possession of the stage until 
1741, when on the 14th of February Macklin's cele- 
brated revival of the original took place at Drury Lane. 
It is a common statement that the alteration then dis- 
appeared forever. Genest, the annalist of the later 
drama, whose accuracy can almost invariably be trusted 
as safely as his critical comments can frequently be disre- 
garded, declares that " from this time Lansdowne's Jew 
of Venice has been consigned to oblivion." ^ Yet the 
remarks made upon it in Baker's ' Gompanion to the 
Stage,' published in 1764, certainly give the impression 
that it was then holding its own with the original.^ 

On the other hand Gibber's version of ' Richard III.' 
was the longest-lived. In March, 1821, Macready made 
an attempt to have the play, as Shakespeare wrote it, 
revived at the Govent Garden Theatre ; but the under- 
taking was ill-managed, and the experiment was a 

1 Genest, vol. iii. p. 629. 

2 The second edition of this work, which appeared in 1782 under the 
title of ' Biographia Dramatica,' was largely rewritten hj Isaac Beed, 
but it made no change in this statement. 

319 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

failure. It was acted but two nights. Macready tells 
us in his diary that later he would have presented it 
in its purity, had his management of Covent Garden 
Theatre — which extended from 1837 to 1839 — been 
continued.^ The task he did not attempt was under- 
taken by Phelps at the Sadler's Wells Theatre in 1845. 
During the first season of his management he played the 
piece with certain condensations as it was originally 
written. Its revival took place on the 20th of February 
of that year. Before the season closed it had been per- 
formed at least twenty-one times.^ 

The memory of this attempt had died away, when 
in January, 1877, ' Richard III. ' was revived for a 
second time by Henry Irving, and, as it is claimed, 
with stricter adherence to the original text than when 
it was played by Phelps. On January 29 of the year 
just mentioned it was put on the stage of the Lyceum 
Theatre. It is spoken of as having been highly suc- 
cessful ; it certainly ran until May 12, when it gave 
way to 'The Lyons Mail,' adapted by Charles Reade 
from the French. During that period it had been acted 
in all eighty-four times. A similar course was taken a 
year later in America. On the 6th of January, 1878, 
Edwin Booth opened a six weeks' engagement at the 
Fifth Avenue Theatre, New York, with the perform- 
ance of this tragedy, as written by Shakespeare. Be- 
fore he had finished, he had played it a dozen times. 
At the close of this same year he repeated the same 

1 Macready, Diary, p. 170 (American edition). 

^ 'The Life and Life- Work of Samuel Phelps ' (p. 69) says "twenty- 
four times," and it is very likely right ; but I find the piece advertised 
for only twenty-one nights. 

320 



ALTERATIONS OF SHAKESPEARE'S PLAYS 

performance during a short engagement at the Winter 
Garden Theatre.^ 

Of the original text of ' Lear,' there had been, as we 
have seen, spasmodic partial revivals. It was not until 
January 25, 1838, that Macready brought it out in 
its entirety at the Covent Garden Theatre. He hesi- 
tated for a while about restoring the fool, not on any 
ground of its failure in art, but from the fear that 
the terrible contrast of the characters would destroy 
instead of enhancing the effect in acting representa- 
tion. Both Garrick and Colman had considered the 
advisability of reviving this part,^ Macready's ' Lear ' 
seems to have achieved a respectable, but only re- 
spectable, success. It was played eleven times before 
the season closed on the sixth of July. It was subse- 
quently produced from the original of Shakespeare by 
Phelps in November, 1845, at the Sadler's Wells Theatre. 

So much for the later fortunes of these plays, re- 
modellings of which were the last survivals of prac- 
tices that had once been common. Our wonder at 
the audacity, not to call it impudence of these altera- 
tions, is increased — if increase be possible — when we 
come to consider that Shakespeare was not only a born 
dramatist with an eye constantly fixed upon stage 
effect, but that he was in addition a born poet, who 
was able to give to the interest of impressive or start- 
ling situations the further charm of beautiful imagery 
and exquisite verse. The ability to accomplish the 

1 New York Tribune, Jan. 8, 1878, and Dec. 5, 1878, p. 5 and col. 2 
of both issues. 

2 Davies, Dramatic Miscellanies, vol. ii. p. 267. 

21 321 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

latter, it is needless to say, is not only of a far higher 
kind than that of producing the former, but it is 
something rarely found in conjunction with it. One 
would therefore fancy when the two qualities happened 
to meet in any particular work, the parts exhibiting this 
union in its most perfect form would be carefully re- 
tained, no matter what disposition might be made for 
stage purposes of the rest of the play. This not un- 
reasonable anticipation is doomed to disappointment. 
The large majority of the men who meddled with 
Shakespeare's dramas were not only incapable of doing 
a good thing themselves, they did not appear to know 
it when they saw it done by somebody else. One of 
the most singular things connected with these altera- 
tions is that in many cases where the stage situation 
is retained, that which gives the part its greatest dis- 
tinction as literature is carelessly allowed or carefully 
made to disappear. Sometimes it is omitted altogether ; 
sometimes it is subjected to modification just sufficient 
to turn highly poetical poetry into very prosaic prose. 
Worse than all, there is occasionally matter added to it 
which causes to the sensitive soul almost a thrill of pain 
that stuff so abominable should have ever by any chance 
come to be associated with the name of Shakespeare. 

Omission indeed, the most numerous perhaps of all 
these changes, can up to a certain point plead in its de- 
fence that things were left out, not because there was 
lack of appreciation of the poetry, but because there is a 
limit to the time of the representation of a play. This 
affords, of course, no excuse when matter from outside 
sources has been brought in, thereby necessitating the 

322 



ALTERATIONS OF SHAKESPEARE'S PLAYS 

rejection of much of the original. In Gibber's version/ 
of ' Richard III. ' not only were entire scenes discarded 
— such for instance as the one containing the dream of 
Clarence — but with them disappeared any number of 
short passages, which are as beautiful on the poetic side 
as they are effective on the dramatic. Take for illus- 
tration the sense of security arising from high birth 
and family connections which Gloucester, when warned 
to beware of falling, depicts in these two lines, — 

" Our aery buildeth in the cedar's top, 
And dallies with the wind and scorns the sun." 

It is fair to say for Gibber that the very plan of his 
stagey version rendered the rejection of scenes con- 
taining such passages almost a necessity. He tried to 
make up for their disappearance by introducing extracts 
taken from other plays. Thus the announcement to 
Henry VI., while in the Tower, of the death of his son, 
is borrowed from the announcement in ' Henry IV. ' of 
the death of Hotspur to Northumberland. Gonvey- 
ances of this sort appear only as patches in the piece in 
which they are inserted. Dramatically the fine speeches 
found in Shakespeare can never be safely wrenched from 
the characters who utter them. They are flowers which 
lose their freshness when torn from the branch to which 
they belong ; they live only an artificial life when trans- 
planted to another soil than that which has given them 
birth. 

It is not omission, however, with which most fault 
is to be found. Rejection, indeed, on the most exten- 
sive scale can be regarded with actual approval, when 
once we contrast it with the havoc which was made 

323 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

with both sentiment and verse in the cases where the 
original was supposed to be retained. It is not, for 
illustration, within the power of hyperbole to charac- 
terize adequately the changes which Otway made 
in transplanting the balcony scene from ' Romeo and 
Juliet' into his play of ' Caius Marius.' As one 
specimen, here is the way in which the approach of 
dawn is described. Romeo, it is to be borne in mind, 
has been exiled, and death is his portion if he be found 
within Verona's walls. Juliet, in the parting scene, in 
urging him to remain still longer, declares that day is 
not near at hand, and that it is the song of no bird 
of early morn which has aroused his apprehensions but 
that of the nightingale. In his answer expressing 
the contrary view, we have the picture of the rising 
sun first gilding with its rays the mountain tops, and 
scattering the clouds with its shafts of light, before 
driving the darkness from the plains below. The same 
passage occurs in Otway, but not the same. The day is 
no longer pictured standing tiptoe on the mountain 
tops for a brief moment before descending into the 
valleys. On the contrary, after having put on gay 
attire, it apparently leaves the valleys to take care of 
themselves, and continues to stay on these same moun- 
tain tops long enough to hold a morning reception, at 
which of all places in the world the birds are repre- 
sented as appearing. Here are the lines as they are 
found in Otway, — 

*' Oh ! 't was the lark, the herald of the morn, 
No nightingale : Look, love, what envious streaks 
Of light embroider all the cloudy east. 
324 



ALTERATIONS OF SHAKESPEARE'S PLAYS 

Night's candles are burnt out, and jocund day 
Upon the mountain tops sits gaily drest, 
Whilst all the birds bring music to his levee. 
I must be gone and live or stay and die." ^ 

All that is good in this passage is the work of Shake- 
speare ; all that is bad is the work of Otway. Yet the 
spoliation which he accomplished practically excluded 
the original from the stage till about the middle of the 
eighteenth century. 

Despicable as such alterations are — and many as bad 
could be cited — they are on the whole surpassed by 
passages in the revised ' Lear, ' in which the majestic 
lines of Shakespeare are joined with the inanities of 
Tate. There has been frequent occasion to speak of 
this version and of its concocter. Tate indeed has been 
somewhat concisely and comprehensively described as 
"the author of the worst alterations of Shakespeare, the 
worst version of the Psalms, and the worst continuation 
of a great poem extant."^ This is doing him alto- 
gether too high honor. None of these things are true. 
Tate would be a much more interesting man if a single 
one of them were true. It is the dead level of his 
mediocrity which makes misplaced any application to his 

1 For the sake of easy comparison the passage, as found in Shake- 
speare, is subjoined : — 

" It was the lark, the herald of the morn, 
No nightingale: look, love, what envious streaks 
Do lace the severing clouds in yonder east. 
Night's candles are burnt out, and jocund day 
Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops: 
I must be gone and live or stay and die." 

2 By Craik in his 'History of English Literature/ vol. ii. p. 121 
(American edition). 

325 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

attempts of the superlative employed. Yet the descrip- 
tion is so far justified that of all the alterations of Shake- 
speare, his of ' Lear ' is on the whole the most preten- 
tious and the most feeble; yet owing to the agencies 
which have been mentioned it was and long continued 
to be the most successful with the public. It is its 
popularity, indeed, which has made his version exasper- 
ating ; for every change in it is a change for the worse. 
This is true both of the characters and of the way in 
which they express themselves. To exemplify the 
former, Edmund is one who will serve as an illustration 
for all. In Shakespeare he is pictured as a bold, un- 
scrupulous, intellectual, and able villain : Tate thought 
fit to endow him further with the vulgar brutality of a 
ruffian and a ravisher. 

It is, however, in the forcible -feeble way in which 
he endeavored to add to the power of passages in his 
original that Tate shines. One or two extracts will 
give some slight conception of the improvements which 
certain of our fathers regarded as constituting this 
alteration a work of higher art than Shakespeare, owing 
to his ignorance, was able to accomplish. In one place 
in the original Edmund, the natural son of Gloucester, 
is represented as imposing upon his father's credulity 
by a forged letter which he pretends to have received 
from Edgar, the legitimate son. In it the writer ap- 
pears anxious for the death of his parent that he may 
the sooner succeed to his inheritance. When Glou- 
cester reads the letter he is utterly confounded by its 
contents. What can it mean? He is willing to give 
up rank and estate to be fully satisfied, and asks 

326 



ALTERATIONS OF SHAKESPEARE'S PLAYS 

Edmund to ascertain the exact truth. " To his father 
that so tenderly and entirely loves him," is his startled 
comment. "Heaven and earth! Edmund, seek him 
out ; wind me into him, I pray you ; frame the business 
after your own wisdom. I would unstate myself to be 
in a due resolution." In Tate's version this natural 
expression of troubled doubt, anxiety, surprise, and 
sorrow gives way to this extraordinary manifestation 
of parental wrath: — 

" Edgar to write this 
'Gainst his indulgent father ! Death and hell ! 
Fly, Edmund, seek him out, wind me into him, 
That I may bite the traitor's heart, and fold 
His bleeding entrails on my vengeful arm." 

This cannot be surpassed, but it is approached by the 
exclamatory utterances with which Lear himself greets 
the proposal of his daughters that his retinue shall be 
dismissed, and that he shall henceforth receive only the 
attendance of their servants. It is in these words that 
he gives vent to his feelings : — 

" Blood ! fire ! here — leprosies and bluest plagues ! 
Room, room for hell to belch her horrors up 
And drench the Circes in a stream of fire ; 
Hark, how the infernals echo to my rage 
Their whips and snakes." 

After this we need no commentary to understand what 
Shakespeare meant when he spoke of "'Ercles' vein," 
"a tyrant's vein," or "a part to tear a cat in, to make 
all split." 

In this version the scene of the extrusion of the eyes 
is retained. It is unquestionably terrible ; still it is so 
wrought into the texture of the play that it would 

327 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

require a genius almost equal to Shakespeare's to re- 
move it and yet produce the required effect. But Tate 
felt it incumbent to add irony to the horror. Regan, 
after revealing to Gloucester how he had been betrayed 
by his son, draws forth the papers which contain what 
she calls his treason. She asks the blinded man to read 
them, and tauntingly adds, — 

" If thy eyes fail thee, call for spectacles." 

Gloucester in turn does not suffer himself to be out- 
done in these exhibitions. Delightful in quite another 
way are the concluding lines of his soliloquy in which 
he pictures how in the future life his loss of sight will 
be recompensed a thousandfold. After announcing his 
intention — which in Shakespeare though implied is 
never asserted — of throwing himself from the summit 
of some precipice and dashing out his life on the ragged 
flint beneath, he adds, — 

'* Whence my freed soul to her bright sphere shall fly, 
Through boundless orbs eternal regions spy, 
And like the sun be all one glorious eye." 

After familiarizing ourselves with extracts, such as 
these which have been quoted, we feel that Tate has 
claims upon us. Things so atrociously bad arouse feel- 
ings quite different from that depressing ennui which 
attends the re-reading of nearly all other Shakespearean 
alterations. 

It is, however, the remodelling of ' The Merchant of 
Venice ' which will best exemplify the nature of the 
changes that were made in these adaptations, and will 
furnish the best means of contrasting the art of Shake- 

328 



ALTERATIONS OF SHAKESPEARE'S PLAYS 

speare with the art of the men who regarded him as 
merely a barbarian of genius. A detailed description 
of certain features of this one piece will therefore give 
a fairly reasonable conception of the characteristics of 
all. It was the work of Lord Lausdowne, or, as his 
name was at the time of the production of the play, 
George Granville. His version, under the title of ' The 
Jew of Venice,' though not often played, met with 
general favor. It not merely long held the stage to the 
exclusion of the original, but it was spoken of in high 
terms by those who assumed to lay down the laws of 
taste. Something of this may have been due to the 
social position of the adapter; but, after all, the views 
expressed must have had behind them a very genuine 
belief. Gildon tells us that Shakespeare's play had 
received considerable advantage from the pen of Gran- 
ville. Dennis, in dedicating to him his ' Essay on the 
Genius and Writings of Shakespeare,' said that such 
a treatise could not be so properly addressed as to the 
man who best understood Shakespeare and who had 
most improved him. This was certainly a general senti- 
ment, if not the general sentiment; and from its exist- 
ence we can get a pretty just conception of the value 
of much of the criticism which was then applied to the 
works of Shakespeare. 

Lansdowne's version was published in 1701, the year 
of its production on the stage. His advertisement to 
the reader was in the happiest and most suggestive 
style of the criticism which was in vogue during the 
half-century following the Restoration. The writer 
started out with the statement that, as the foundations 

329 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

of the comedy were liable to some objections, it might 
be a matter of wonder that any one should make choice 
of it in order to bestow upon it the labor which had 
been expended. The judicious reader, however, would 
not be misled by these specious appearances. He would 
find in this old play so many manly and moral graces 
in the characters and sentiments that he would excuse 
the story for the sake of the ornamental parts. Lans- 
downe then went on to justify the task of altering, 
which he had undertaken, by the examples of the great 
men who had made attempts of this same kind. These 
great men were Waller, the Earl of Rochester, the 
Duke of Buckingham, Dryden, D'Avenant, and the 
two laureates — Shad well and Tate — who had suc- 
ceeded Dryden. With the exception of the last- 
mentioned, it was a pretty sorry list of authors to bring 
forward in defence of the jjractice of remodelling, or, as 
it was then called, of restoring old plays. He further 
professed to be anxious that nothing should be imputed 
to Shakespeare that was unworthy of him. Accordingly 
he put between inverted commas the lines which were 
purely of his own composition, though he observed that 
in these additions he had taken care to imitate the 
same fashion of period and turn of style which the origi- 
nal possessed. The fact it was well to state ; if unmen- 
tioned, it would have pretty surely escaped attention. 
"She robs her father with a Christian grace," is a 
remark about Jessica which he puts in the mouth of 
Gratiano. It is the only line of his additions which is 
worth quoting, and it conveys a very untrue impression 
of his own thefts. 

330 



ALTERATIONS OF SHAKESPEARE'S PLAYS 

The prologue to this adaptation was written by Bevil 
Higgons, a poet of about the same grade as Lansdowne, 
of whom he was a kinsman. It was of the nature of a 
dialogue between the ghosts of Shakespeare and Dry- 
den, both of whom rise crowned with laurel. They 
indulge in elaborate compliments to each other, but it 
is not till he comes to speak of his adapter that the 
former, most complaisant of spirits, rises to eulogy. It 
is in this way he comments upon the work which has 
been done upon his play: — 

" These scenes in their rough native dress were mine, 
But now improved with nobler lustre shine ; 
The first rude sketches Shakespeare's pencil drew, 
But all the shining master strokes are new. 
This play, ye critics, shall your fury stand, 
Adorned and rescued by a faultless hand." 

It is evident from the lines given to him, in which 
he specifically mentions himself, that for the moment 
Shakespeare had lost the sense of his art, and spoke the 
sentiments of Higgons, and not his own. It would 
seem as if it must have required a good deal of courage 
on the part of the adapter to permit a prologue to 
be recited or printed, containing adulation so gross. 
Every one indeed can understand that the play of ' The 
Merchant of Venice ' is based upon two improbable or 
rather impossible stories — at least impossible in any 
world with which the modern man is acquainted. The 
distinguishing characteristic of this alteration was to 
retain of the original all that could offend the mere 
understanding, and either leave out or deform a large 
part of it that appealed to the feelings. The plot as 

331 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

retold continued to be as improbable, but ceased to be 
exciting. 

The changes that were made in the alteration were 
on a very extensive scale. Lines are taken from their 
proper place or proper speaker and put in the mouth of 
some other character. The masque, which Shakespeare 
contemplated but left out, was supplied. It was en- 
titled ' Peleus and Thetis, ' and in it the lover in the 
true style of the heroic plays of a somewhat earlier 
period defies Jupiter himself, and with the aid of 
Prometheus fairly bullies the god of thunder into aban- 
doning his designs upon the bride. One would be 
glad to have had Shylock's opinion of this entertain- 
ment, at which he is represented as being present, if 
Shakespeare could only have returned to earth long 
enough to have given it just expression. This is the 
only addition of much length to the play. Omissions, 
as might be expected, are numerous. Not only are 
speeches rejected or cut down, but a large number of 
the characters are dropped. Naturally the Gobbos, 
father and son, would disappear according to the ap- 
proved canons of taste then in vogue. These could not 
be expected to tolerate personages of so low a position 
in a scene generally so stately. The other extreme is 
also discarded. Neither the prince of Morocco nor 
the prince of Aragon is retained. There are, besides, 
alterations peculiarly absurd in the speeches, sometimes 
due to the adapter's lack of taste, sometimes to his 
lack of knowledge. As an illustration of the latter, 
Granville changed the words in the trial scene with 
which in Shakespeare Shylock apostrophizes Portia : — 

332 



ALTERATIONS OF SHAKESPEARE'S PLAYS 

" A Daniel come to judgment ! yea, a Daniel ! 
O wise young judge, how do I honor thee ! " 

Here the reference is to the story of Susanna and the 
elders, as told in the apocryphal scriptures of the Old 
Testament. In them Daniel, described as "a young 
youth," is called to a seat on the tribunal, there 
examines the elders, convicts them of false witness, and 
saves the innocent. It is accordingly a peculiarly ap- 
propriate designation to apply to the disguised Portia ; 
for it is the youthful appearance of the judge that sug- 
gests the comparison to Shy lock. In Granville's ver- 
sion it reads as follows: — 

" A Daniel, a Daniel : so ripe in wisdom, 
And so young in years! A second Solomon." 

These words, with the addition of the reference to 
Solomon, show that Granville had no conception of 
what was in Shakespeare's mind when he applied to 
the youthful judge, who was determining the case, the 
name of Daniel. He is perhaps not so much to blame ; 
it is an ignorance which he has shared with many of the 
commentators. 

All this mutilation would not have been so bad, had 
there been any adherence to Shakespeare's art in what 
was preserved from the wreck. For in many ways 
' The Merchant of Venice ' is worked up with a care 
that will escape the attention of every one who does not 
subject its details to close scrutiny, no matter how 
much he may be impressed with its general effect. 
The keynote of the story is contained in the opening 
lines. It is the presentiment of approaching disaster, 

333 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

haunting the heart of Antonio, that foreshadows the 
tragical situation about which the interest of the play is 
to revolve. In the very first words of the first scene he 
sounds the ominous note of impending evil : — 

" In sooth I know not why I am so sad : 
It wearies me ; you say it wearies you ; 
But how I caught it, found it, or came by it, 
What stuff 't is made of, whereof it is born, 
I am to learn ; 

And such a want-wit sadness makes of me. 
That I have much ado to know myself." 

At the very outset therefore we meet with the merchant 
prince's anticipation of calamity, coming from a quarter 
he cannot tell where, presenting itself in a form he 
cannot imagine what; but, however vague in shape or 
misty in outline, it has already been sufficient to cast 
a shadow over his life. It is the artist-like care with 
which Shakespeare, in the midst of the gayety of the 
opening scenes, prepares us for the horrible reality that 
is speedily to confront the chief actors in the drama, 
which removes the improbability of the story as a story 
entirely out of our thoughts, and fixes them with almost 
painful absorption upon the incidents that occur, with 
the fullest belief on our part, in their consonancy with 
the truth of life. All this skilfully wrought foretoken- 
ing of what is to follow is discarded in the adaptation. 
It was not understood, and therefore it was deemed 
unnecessary or inappropriate. 

Still the utter lack of comprehension of the require- 
ments of the highest art is most conspicuous in the 
changes which were made in the judicial scene in the 
fourth act. With this part most of us have become so 

334 



ALTERATIONS OF SHAKESPEARE'S PLAYS 

well acquainted, at an age when we feel rather than 
reflect, that the very familiarity blunts our perception 
of the extraordinary skill which has been displayed in 
the whole conduct of the trial, the almost impossibility 
of altering a word or of adding or omitting a line with- 
out impairing the flawlessness of the perfect whole. 
For the task set before the poet was one of peculiar 
difficulty ; it is liis triumph that neither reader nor 
hearer observes how great a difficulty it is. For in 
spite of the evil repute in which the Jewish race had 
been held for centuries, Shakespeare could not but 
have felt that in following the story out to its conclu- 
sion — a conclusion which was probably as well known 
to the audience as to himself — he could hardly fail to 
outrage to a certain extent our latent natural sense of 
justice by a result which purports to be in strictest 
accordance with justice. Whatever may have been the 
guilt and bloodthirstiness of Shylock, one cannot get 
entirely over the impression that he is a hardly used 
man. In the matter of deriving profit from money 
lent, he is a long way ahead of Antonio, who is noth- 
ing more than the ignorant upholder of a sentimental 
notion about the taking of interest, the prevalence of 
which produces the very evils it ostentatiously professes 
to deplore ; and it must be remembered that the taking 
of one per cent would have been then reckoned an 
offence against the moral law as well as the taking of 
a hundred. In the pursuance of his philanthropic 
zeal against usury he has accordingly treated the Jew 
as a dog, as a cur of the meanest kind ; he has in par- 
ticular endeavored to convince him of the error of his 

335 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

ways in the usual manner then adopted by Christians 
with the chosen people, that is, by spitting upon him, 
buffeting him, and kicking him. 

That a man subjected for years to treatment of this 
sort should be ready at the proper moment to make a 
lively exhibition of the Christian graces seems to have 
occurred only to critics of Shakespeare; it assuredly 
never occurred to Shakespeare himself. It was, there- 
fore, all-important, from the point of view of art, that 
the malevolence of the Jew should be brought out in 
this trial scene in as impressive a manner as possible. 
To the production of this effect the poet paid special 
heed. Again and again is Shylock entreated to accept 
the money due him. Not the mere amount only, but 
three times the amount ; not only three times, but 
practically any amount he chooses to demand. Again 
and again does Portia press upon him the cancellation 
of the bond. Again and again she brings up the ques- 
tion of releasing the merchant now in his power. By 
fine but steadily increasing gradations the refusal in 
each case is made more emphatic. Appeals to his 
clemency, appeals to his avarice are alike in vain. It 
is by these repeated offers and repeated denials that the 
malignity of Shylock forces itself upon the apprehen- 
sion of the dullest of us all. It is our consciousness 
of this which alone reconciles us to the result of the 
trial, which in one sense is an utter travesty of justice. 

No feeling of this sort will be awakened by Lans- 
downe's version. It has in one way an interest of its 
own, because it enables us to see how slight are the 
changes, how few are the omissions which are required 

336 



ALTERATIONS OF SHAKESPEARE'S PLAYS 

to convert a high-wrought scene into commonplace, 
which is always crude and sometimes offensive. The 
apparent leaning of the tribunal at the outset to the 
justice of Shylock's plea, heightening by contrast 
the dramatic effect of the subsequent action, is sen- 
sibly lessened in this alteration. To compensate for 
this abatement, Portia, at the end, casts off the judicial 
dignity, which in the original she never for a moment 
lays aside, and hastens to exhibit the feelings of a partisan 
and to proclaim herself such openly and even offen- 
sively. The railing invectives of Gratiano, thoroughly 
in keeping with the character, are transferred to Bas- 
sanio, in whose mouth they are inappropriate and un- 
becoming ; while the dignity of the whole scene is 
impaired and indeed almost destroyed by the cheap 
expedients of the latter in seeking to interfere with the 
processes of the court, by making offers of self-sacrifice, 
which he must know cannot be accepted, and by attempt- 
ing acts of violence which he must know equally well 
cannot prevail. Very little, in truth, of the skilful art 
of the original has been preserved in the version of the 
trial scene which Lansdowne perpetrated. It is through- 
out hurried and crude. The almost agonizing intensity 
of feeling, which slowly but steadily deepens and broadens 
on both sides, is no longer seen or felt. The repeated 
offers and repeated refusals to accept anything that will 
stand in the way of the accomplishment of revenge no 
longer force themselves upon the attention. These 
variations would of themselves settle the question of 
art, if there were a question in regard to it, inde- 
pendent of the genius of the writers. 
22 337 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

But even more pronounced is the difference of light 
in which the Jew appears in the two productions. In 
the Shylock of Shakespeare is concentrated the wrath 
of a race turning upon its oppressors, — a race conscious 
of the importance of the part it has played in the past, 
with its long line of lawgivers and prophets to which 
all nations turn, equally conscious of the misery it has 
endured and is continuing to endure in the present. 
As it has been great in suffering, so will it be great in 
vengeance. Entreaties are useless ; threats are mere 
empty breath. Pity will not soften the heart nor 
obloquy cause it to yield. In Lansdowne, on the con- 
trary, Shylock is no longer exalted by wrath. He is 
not indeed a comic character, as has been so persist- 
ently asserted; but he is essentially a vulgar one. He 
exhibits nothing of that sublimity of hate which awes 
us by its intensity, and gives to malignity a character 
almost of grandeur. Though he feels antipathy, his 
antipathy is purely of the nature of a business invest- 
ment. He is willing to sacrifice the wealth he holds 
dear in order to free himself from the further inter- 
position of a man who has hindered him in his gains, 
thwarted him in his bargains, and laughed at his losses. 
He is not, as in Shakespeare, the representative of the 
long martyrdom of a race. He is nothing but the Jew 
of the huckster's stall, of the old-clothes' shop, whose 
ideal in life is a profit of at least two hundred per cent, 
and whose Messiah is desired to come, not to effect the 
conquest of the world, but to give his people the posses- 
sion of its traffic. 



338 



CHAPTER IX 

CONFLICTING EIGHTEENTH-CENTUEY VIEWS 
ABOUT SHAKESPEAHE 

To the men of modern times there is something 
very amusing, when it is not exasperating, in the 
attitude exhibited by the eighteenth century towards 
the Elizabethan age. There was, to be sure, nothing 
new about it then ; it had begun to be displayed 
with the beginning of the Restoration period. Strength 
and force, it was always confessed, had been shown 
by the writers of the past ; but it was Charles who, 
on his return from exile, had brought with him correct- 
ness and grace and refinement. To use the language 
of Dryden, he had cured the rankness of the soil 
with the rules of husbandry; he had tamed the rude- 
ness of the stage, and had imparted to it manners and 
decorum ; he had, in fine, endowed boisterous English 
wit with art.i But it was not until the so-called 
Augustan age was in full bloom that men rose to 
the full consciousness of their superiority to their 
fathers. The audience which Shakespeare addressed, 
it was then held, was the most incapable of judgment 
of any that ever existed. It was made up of 
the lowest and the meanest of the populace. It was 
the tastes and the wishes of this class which the 

1 Epistle to Congreve. 
339 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

dramatic writer was compelled to consult. This is 
the view regularly expressed during the whole of 
the eighteenth century. It is what Gildon tells us 
in the early part of it.^ In the latter part of it we 
find the same assertions made by Mrs. Montagu, who 
had put herself forward as the champion of Shakespeare 
against Voltaire. 

The absurdity of this self-satisfied complacency of 
the eighteenth century comes home to us with peculiar 
force the moment we stop to contrast the men who 
stand out as the conspicuous representatives of its 
political and intellectual life with the corresponding 
characters of the period to which it felt and expressed 
superiority. It approaches the comic to find the petty 
writers of an inferior time gravely commenting upon 
the barbarism of an age in which had flourished Raleigh, 
Sidney, Spenser, Bacon, Jonson, Shakespeare, — to 
name some of the greatest, — beside a whole host of 
writers who, while falling below the grade of the 
highest, were nevertheless distinctively men of genius. 
Yet this attitude of condescension was taken in all 
sincerity and seriousness. The men who assumed it 
had of course no knowledge of the period they were 
criticising. There was accordingly displayed by them 
a total ignorance of the predecessors of Shakespeare. 
He was represented as having been the one to create 
the stage, and his advocates constantly dwelt upon 
the barbarism of his times as a palliation, if not a 
complete excuse for his conceded faults. The prologue 
to Dryden's alteration of 'Troilus and Cressida' is 

1 The Complete Art of Poetry, vol. i. p. 64. 
340 



CONFLICTING EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY VIEWS 

supposed to be spoken by the ghost of the great 
dramatist. It is in these lines that he delivers a 
common opinion then entertained about himself, — 

" Untaught, unpractised, in a barbarous age, 
I found not, but created first the stage. 
And if I drained no Greek or Latin store, 
'T was that my own abundance gave me more. 
On foreign trade I needed not rely, 
Like fruitful Britain, rich without supply." 

It was this belief in the rudeness of Shakespeare's age 
and the inevitable resulting rudeness of himself, which 
had brought about the mangling of his plays under 
the honest conviction that the alterations to which 
they were subjected were improvements. This same 
belief led in time to the development among those 
holding it of divergent opinions in regard to his art. 
By the close of the seventeenth century we become 
aware of the prevalence of two estimates of Shakespeare, 
which though not diametrically opposite are yet far 
from being in harmony. The modern view which 
regards him as an exponent of true art was evidently 
even then in being; but it had nowhere any author- 
itative expression. So far as literature was concerned, 
it lurked unseen and unheard. None the less was 
it potential with that mass of men who knew nothing 
about the rules then so much insisted upon, and cared 
less. They remained faithful to the poet during all 
variations of taste, and amid the changing fortunes 
of critical controversy. Through them he steadily 
passed all competitors in the race for popularity. 
Though they left no record of their opinions in poem 

341 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

or pamphlet or book, they were so numerous that 
deference had to be paid to their feelings, even when 
contempt was expressed for their judgment. 

The contrasted attitude of mind of what may be called 
the more or less educated laity and the critical clergy 
is unconsciously exemplified in the different views 
recorded by Edward Phillips, the nephew of Milton, in 
his volume, published in 1675, dealing with poets and 
poetry. In the body of the work Shakespeare is spoken 
of as " the glory of the English stage." Others might 
pretend to a more exact decorum and economy, never 
any one expressed a more lofty and tragic height ; never 
any one represented nature more purely to the life. 
Even when the polishments of art are wanting, he was 
declared to please with a certain wild and native ele- 
gance.^ It has been common to hold Milton responsible 
for the appearance in the work of these opinions. There 
is as little ground for such a contention as there is evi- 
dence. The sentiments here expressed were by no means 
unusual. They were those of the men who at that time 
paid little or no heed to the observance of dramatic 
rules. We are apt to get a wrong estimate of the number 
of these, because the many never troubled themselves 
to record their faith, while the few were generally 
careful to express their dissent; and it is the views 
alone of these latter, consequently, that reach us. In 
this instance they are distinctly conveyed in the preface 
to the work. There we are informed that the unfiled 
expression of the dramatist and his rambling and indi- 
gested fancies are the laughter of the critical. 

1 Theatrum Poetarum (1675), p. 194. 
342 



CONFLICTING EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY VIEWS 

It cannot be repeated too often that there is no 
support for the assumption that such wholesale denun- 
ciation of Shakespeare as occurs in Rymer ever repre- 
sented the sentiments of either a large or an influential 
body of men. It was at best nothing but the expression 
of the prejudice and incapacity of a few individuals. 
It never exerted any appreciable influence upon the 
estimate taken of the dramatist. But in the history 
of critical controversy as distinguished from that of 
popular opinion, the existence of two classes holding 
divergent opinions about his di-amatic art is distinctly 
recognizable at the end of the seventeenth century. 
During the whole of the century following they are both 
constantly in evidence and often in collision. To some 
extent too they acted and reacted upon each other. 
The one of these which is first to be considered, was 
the one which was most prominent at the outset. In 
the world of purely professional criticism it may be said 
to have had then nearly absolute sway. It did not — 
at least in its own opinion — disparage Shakespeare. 
It took of him what may be termed the inspired- 
barbarian view. It went upon the assumption that 
while his genius was vast, it worked independently of 
the rules of the highest art. Accordingly its manifesta- 
tions were never kept under the restraints of that chas- 
tened propriety of sentiment and diction which by 
common consent of eighteenth-century writers had be- 
come the distinguishing trait of the productions of their 
own age. In consequence the judicious reader was alter- 
nately delighted and disgusted with what he met in the 
poet. This estimate, widely held and long accepted 

343 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

as indisputably true by many critics, and at one period 
perhaps by the majority of them, is best summed up in 
an epigram which appeared in a magazine of 1745. 
The couplet, which bore as its title the simple heading 
" On Shakespeare," runs as follows : — 

" His faults, or virtues who could justly tell ? 
No mortal higher soared, nor lower fell. "^ 

Opinions of this sort can be found in abundance 
during the one hundred and fifty years which followed 
the Restoration. It is the view taken by Dryden in his 
earlier criticism, in which, while conceding the genius 
of Shakespeare, he was more disposed than he was at a 
later period to lay stress upon his imputed faults. In 
the epilogue to the second part of 'The Conquest 
of Granada,' brought out in 1670, he had maintained 
that wit had reached a higher degree of refinement than 
in the previous age, that the humor of the Elizabethan 
drama was mechanic, its conversation was low, and its 
love was mean ; that the writers of that period had got 
their fame by being first-comers and had kept it since 
by being dead. The criticism was directed mainly 
against Jonson, but it stirred up all the believers in 
the earlier stage. Dryden defended himself in a prose 
pamphlet, in the course of which he had this to say 
about the greatest of the Elizabethans. " Shakespeare," 
he observed, " who many times has written better than 
any poet in any language, is yet so far from writing wit 
always, or expressing that wit according to the dignity 
of the subject, that he writes in many places below the 

1 Gentleman's Magazine, vol. xv. p. 213, April, 1745. 
344 



CONFLICTING EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY VIEWS 

dullest writer of ours or any precedent age. Never did 
any author precipitate himself from such heights of 
thought to such low expressions as he often does. He 
is the very Janus of poets : he wears almost everywhere 
two faces ; and you have scarce begun to admire the one 
ere you despise the other." ^ To the same effect spoke 
Crowne, a few years later, in dedicating to Sir Charles 
Sedley his adaptation of ' Henry VI.' " Though Shake- 
speare," he wrote, " be generally very delightful, he is 
not so always. His volume is all uphill and down. 
Paradise was never more pleasant than some parts of 
it, nor Ireland and Greenland colder and more unin- 
habitable than others." 

Criticism of this sort we have had occasion to see 
constantly expressed or implied in the writings of 
Dennis and Gildon. The latter assures us that when 
Shakespeare does not follow the rules, he falls into such 
monstrous absurdities that nothing but his uncommon 
excellences in other parts could prevail with men of 
judgment and good sense to endure his works. ^ This 
is a view which finds frequent expression through the 
whole of the eighteenth century. Bolingbroke told 
Voltaire that the English had not one good tragedy 
as a whole ; the merit of the best of them lay in 
detached scenes. Chesterfield held an opinion not es- 
sentially different. Joseph Warton opens some obser- 
vations on ' The Tempest ' with the remark that 
Shakespeare exhibited more numerous examples of ex- 
cellences and faults of every kind than can perhaps be 

1 Defence of the Epilogue to the Conquest of Granada. 

2 Complete Art of Poetry, vol. i. p. 99. 

345 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

discovered in any other author.* Later he observed 
that Shakespeare, Corneille, and Racine are the only 
modern writers of tragedy that could be opposed to 
-lEschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides ; but he added that 
the first was an author so uncommon and so eccentric 
that he can scarcely be tried by dramatic rules.'^ Years 
afterward Cumberland repeated the same old story. 
According to him, Shakespeare was an author whose 
excellences are beyond comparison and whose errors are 
beyond number.^ 

This view had supporters down to the very close of 
the eighteenth century. It was perhaps most violent 
in its utterances at the very time it was on the point of 
falling into disrepute. The opinions expressed by those 
who held it ran naturally to extremes, and were favor- 
able or unfavorable according as the critic was shocked 
most by the absurdities of Shakespeare or impressed by 
his counterbalancing merits. His steadily increasing 
popularity during the century, shown by the increasing 
number of revivals of his plays, was very distressing to 
many members of this class. Their feelings are fully 
portrayed in the invective against Garrick and the 
stage which Goldsmith introduced into his ' Inquiry 
into the Present State of Polite Learning in Europe.' 
These revived plays are there termed hashes of absurd- 
ity which disgusted our ancestors even in an age of 
ignorance. They were full of forced humor, far-fetched 
conceit, and unnatural hyperbole. Goldsmith was good 
enough to say that he admired the beauties of the great 

1 Adventurer, No. 93, Sept. 25, 1753. « Ibid., No. 127, Jan. 22, 1754. 
8 Observer, No. 75 (1785). 

346 



CONFLICTING EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY VIEWS 

father of the English stage as much as they deserved ; 
but he could wish for both the honor of the country and 
of the author himself that many of his scenes should be 
forofotten.^ This reminds one of Charles James Fox's 
remark that he thought Shakespeare's credit would 
have stood higher if he had never written ' Hamlet.' ^ 
Goldsmith fui'ther brought forward the observation, 
wliich turns up with unvarying regularity in every gen- 
eration, that the success of the great dramatist was not 
really due to himself, but to prescription. "Let the 
spectator," said he, " who assists at any of these newly 
revived pieces only ask himself whether he would ap- 
prove such a performance if written by a modern poet. 
I fear he will find that much of his applause proceeds 
merely from the sound of a name and an empty venera- 
tion for antiquity." 

Goldsmith's knowledge of any subject he treated 
was always in an inverse ratio to the charm of his style ; 
and this is not the only place where he made it manifest 
that his critical judgment was on a par with his knowl- 
edge. The view he expressed in this work published in 
1759 he reiterated in ' The Vicar of Wakefield ' which 
came out a few years later. In it Dr. Primrose is rep- 
resented as asking the strolling player whom he has 
met who are the present theatrical writers in vogue ; 
who the Drydens and Otways of the day. The clergy- 
man is astonished and disgusted when told that these 
writers are quite out of fashion ; that the taste had gone 

1 Chapter xi. 

2 Northcote, Life of Sir Joshua Reynolds, vol. ii. p. 234 (ed. of 
1818). 

347 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

back a whole century ; that Fletcher, Ben Jonson, and 
all the plays of Shakespeare are the only things that go 
down. Here is his comment upon this information. 
" ' How,' cried I, ' is it possible the present age can be 
pleased with that antiquated dialect, that obsolete 
humor, those overcharged characters, which abound in 
the works you mention ? ' " i The words are the words 
of the vicar; the sentiments are the sentiments of 
Goldsmith. 

But the feeling here depicted was by no means con- 
fined to fiction ; it is exhibited and exemplified in works 
dealing with the dullest fact. The worthy Blair, who 
set out to correct the bad English of others in pretty bad 
English of his own, had a good deal to say in his treatise 
on rhetoric about the failure of the dramatist to come up 
to the severe standard he had himself in mind. On the 
whole, he may be considered as not having been actually 
unkind to Shakespeare. He doubtless pitied him more 
than he admired ; but considering who he was himself, 
and how lofty were his ideals, it was a good deal to his 
credit that he refrained from expressing unbounded con- 
tempt. Shakespeare had genius, he conceded ; " but at 
the same time it is genius shooting wild ; deficient in 
just taste, and altogether unassisted by knowledge and 
art." Accordingly he was in doubt whether the beauties 
or the faults of the dramatist were greater. He natu- 
rally expressed himself as shocked by his extreme irregu- 
larities in the conduct of the plot, and at the grotesque 
mixture of the serious and the comic in one piece. 
" There is hardly any one of his plays," he concluded, 

1 Chapter xviiL 
348 



CONFLICTING EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY VIEWS 

" which can be called altogether a good one, and which 
can be read with uninterrupted pleasure from beginning 
to end." ^ These words, it is to be remembered, come 
from the lips of a man who is nominally reckoned 
among the editors of Shakespeare. 

The standard of taste of the kind here indicated was 
in truth so high in Scotland during the eighteenth cen- 
tury that the imperfections of Shakespeare lay heavy on 
the heart of several of its men of letters. It was felt 
that something should be done to redeem the English 
theatre from the barbarism with which that dramatist 
had infected it. Hopes were at times entertained that 
North Britain might come to the relief of the suffering 
stage. In a letter written in 1754 to Spence, Hume 
communicated to his correspondent sometliing which he 
observed was an agreeable piece of news. At last we 
might expect to see good tragedies in the English lan- 
guage. A namesake of his own had discovered a very 
fine genius for that species of composition. Years before 
he had written a play called ' Agis ; ' but this, though 
approved by some of the best judges, had not been alto- 
gether satisfactory to Hume himself. The author had 
corrupted his taste by imitating Shakespeare, whom he 
ought to have contented himself with simply admiring. 
But from this clearly debasing influence his namesake 
had now freed himself. He had composed a new tragedy 
in which he had shown himself the true disciple of 
Sophocles and Racine. "I hope in time," continued 
Hume, "he will vindicate the English stage from the 
reproach of barbarism." ^ 

1 Lectures on Khetoric, Lecture xlvi. 

2 Burton's Hume, vol. i. p. 392. Letter of Oct. 15, 1754. 

349 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

This tragedy which was to usher in the English dra- 
matic golden age was the ' Douglas ' of John Home. It is 
a very good specimen of a very poor kind. First acted 
in 1756 at Edinburgh, it was brought out with great 
success in 1757 at Covent Garden, and during the rest 
of the century kept possession of the stage. The feeling 
existed among many Scotchmen that Shakespeare had 
been outdone. Here was a writer who had rivalled, if 
not surpassed, him in his excellences, while he was free 
from his gross faults. He had fulfilled all the condi- 
tions required by the dramatic art. Time and place had 
been faithfully observed. Decorum had been maintained 
throughout. Acts of violence occur; but they are 
properly kept out of sight. To adopt the language of 
Hume, the author had exhibited "the true theatric 
genius of Shakespeare and Otway, refined from the un- 
happy barbarism of the one and the licentiousness of the 
other." Scotchmen indeed took the matter very seri- 
ously. Hannah More tells us of the quarrel she had on 
this subject in the year 1786 with Lord Monboddo. It 
amused the English who were bystanders, though she 
complained that none of them would come to her help. 
They naturally had too much enjoyment of the exhibi- 
tion to desire its discontinuance. Monboddo asserted, 
in all the sincerity of anger, that ' Douglas ' was a better 
play than Shakespeare could have written.^ Yet what 
he said in his wrath Hume had more than once said 
before in all coolness. " I am persuaded," he wrote of 
the play to Adam Smith, " it will be esteemed the best, 
and by French critics the only, tragedy of our lan- 
^ Hannah More, Life and Correspondence, vol. ii. p. 22 (1834). 
350 



CONFLICTING EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY VIEWS 

guage."^ To the author himself he said that it was 
reserved for him, and for him alone, "to redeem our 
stage from the reproach of barbarism." ^ 

Ridiculous as this may seem now, it did not seem to 
many ridiculous then. It only reflected the extreme 
form of a view which, as we have seen, was generally 
entertained by critics of this first class of which we have 
been speaking. Early in the century it was the prevail- 
ing judgment; towards its close it was still prevalent. 
In fact, for a time the influence of Voltaire gave it re- 
newed vigor and vogue. Furthermore, it must be un- 
derstood that whatever we think of it, the eighteenth 
century had no poor opinion of itself. In its own eyes 
it had reached a height of literary judgment above which 
it was impossible for the human mind to ascend. At 
last the unadulterated article of perfect taste had been 
secured, stripped of the meretricious attractions which 
had sullied its chastity in the past, and like refined gold 
purified in the fierce fire of critical assaying from incrus- 
tations which had deformed it, and from baser matter 
which had been mingled with it. There was no hesita- 
tion expressed on this point, for there was none enter- 
tained. Shakespeare in consequence was exalted or 
condemned according as he conformed or failed to con- 
form to the standard the individual critic set up. To 
ascertain the particular place that was to be assigned 
him by the severer judges of this class, we must go back 
to Hume. It is found in the celebrated passage which 
he inserted in the appendix to his account of the reign 
of James I. 

1 Burton's Hume, vol. ii. p. 17. 2 ibid.^ vol. i. p. 419. 

351 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

Hume's theory was that the English writers were pos- 
sessed of great genius before they were endowed with 
any degree of taste. Hence we admire their imagina- 
tion while blaming their judgment. It is in the follow- 
ing words that he made a particular application of his 
general view. "If Shakespeare," he wrote, "be con- 
sidered as a man^ born in a rude age, and educated in 
the lowest manner, without any instruction either from 
the world or from books, he may be regarded as a prod- 
igy; if represented as a poet, capable of furnishing a 
proper entertainment to a refined or intelligent audi- 
ence, we must abate much of this eulogy. In his com- 
positions we regret that many irregularities, and even 
absurdities, should so frequently disfigure the animated 
and passionate scenes intermixed with them ; and at the 
same time we perhaps admire the more those beauties on 
account of their being surrounded with such deformi- 
ties. A striking peculiarity of sentiment, adapted to a 
singular character he frequently hits, as it were, by 
inspiration ; but a reasonable propriety of thought he can- 
not for any time uphold. Nervous and picturesque ex- 
pressions, as well as descriptions, abound in him ; but it 
is in vain we look either for purity or simplicity of dic- 
tion. His total ignorance of all theatrical art and con- 
duct, however material a defect, yet as it affects the 
spectator rather than the reader, we can more easily ex- 
cuse than that want of taste which often prevails in his 
productions, and which gives way only by intervals to 
the irradiations of genius. A great and fertile genius he 
certainly possessed, and one enriched equally with a 
tragic and comic vein ; but he ought to be cited as a 

352 



CONFLICTING EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY VIEWS 

proof, how dangerous it is to rely on these advantages 
alone for attaining an excellence in the finer arts. And 
there may even remain a suspicion that we overrate, if 
possible, the greatness of his genius ; in the same man- 
ner as bodies often appear more gigantic, on account of 
their being disproportioned and misshapen." 

The passage is a familiar one; but no frequency of 
repetition can destroy the charm of its delightfulness. 
To have the greatest dramatist of our race, if not of all 
time, spoken of in a matter-of-course way as totally 
ignorant of all theatrical art and conduct is a touch to 
which men of our age with similar beliefs on this or 
other subjects would never dare to give expression. 
Elsewhere Hume speaks in the most assured manner of 
both Shakespeare and Ben Jonson as being equally 
deficient in taste and elegance, in harmony and correct- 
ness. The rude genius of the former, we are told, had 
prevailed over the rude art of the latter. In conse- 
quence the English theatre has ever since taken a 
strong tincture of Shakespeare's spirit and character. 
The results had been in one way deplorable. Its valu- 
able productions in other parts of learning had not been 
able to save the nation from incurring from all its 
neighbors the reproach of barbarism. 

Speaking merely for myself, I confess I like this criti- 
cal confidence of the eighteenth century, little as I be- 
lieve in its criticism. There was an open magnificent 
sort of way in which it looked upon itself as omniscient, 
which contrasts, a good deal to its credit, with the hesi- 
tating, one might almost say sneaking, manner in which 
we occasionally try to imply the same thing, not daring 
23 353 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

boldly to avow it, while at heart fully thinking it. In 
that clay the critics of this class talked in perfect ac- 
cordance with their convictions. They consequently 
patronized Shakespeare. There was a general tone of 
condescension in their most favorable judgments. He 
lived in a barbarous age. The language had not then 
attained that refinement which it had since been made 
to receive. False taste prevailed, and from the influ- 
ence of it he had been unable to free himself. In fact, 
he lacked almost entirely the favorable conditions with 
which the men of the eighteenth century were profusely 
blessed. Yet in spite of these disadvantages his mighty 
powers had enabled him to accomplish much which 
they honestly felt bound to speak of with decided ap- 
proval. "If Shakespeare's genius," wrote Lord Ches- 
terfield, " had been cultivated, those beauties which we 
so justly admire in him, would have been undisguised 
by those extravagances and that nonsense with which 
they are frequently accompanied." This mingled tone 
of regard and regret pervades no small share of the 
critical utterance of this period. It is hard indeed to 
tell which is the more predominant feeling in the eight- 
eenth century, its admiration of Shakespeare or its 
admiration of itself for admiring Shakespeare ; for its 
broad-minded catholicity in not being so offended by his 
faults as to become blind to his merits. 

Such was the prevalent belief about Shakespeare with 
the critics of the first class. But even at the era of the 
Restoration it came into conflict with another belief, 
which was from the beginning outspoken, though it did 
not at first speak in print. But from the time the 

354 



CONFLICTING EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY VIEWS 

eighteenth century opened, it gathered constantly vol- 
ume and energy, and at last triumphed over the pre- 
viously predominant belief, vs^ith which it had, however, 
much in common. Those holding it admitted the cor- 
rectness of the premises laid down by the critics of the 
first class. What they dissented from was the conclu- 
sion. As a consequence they admired in fact what in 
theory they were bound to condemn. Shakespeare might 
be deficient in art; he undoubtedly was deficient in art. 
He might venture upon practices which the trained 
judgment of the cultivated would disapprove ; but he 
took possession of the heart, and the heart never refused 
its allegiance to the great master, whatever protest the 
mere understanding might put forth. Others might 
preach the superiority of the creed of the regular school 
of dramatists. They might point out how free it was 
from the faults which deformed the writings of the great 
Elizabethan, and proclaim that the doctrine it taught 
was the only orthodox one, and could not be violated 
with impunity. But there remained the disagreeable 
fact that the writers of this school, while observing all 
the laws, committed the one unpardonable sin of being 
uninteresting. Those who censured the dramatist for his 
irregularities, and then subjected themselves to compari- 
son with him by producing regular plays of their own, had 
without exception exposed themselves to the malediction 
pronounced by Dryden in the prologue to his last play, — 

" To Shakespeare's critic he bequeaths the curse, 
To find his faults, and yet himself make worse; 
A precious reader in poetic schools, 
Who by his own examples damns his rules." i 

1 Prologue to ' Love Triumphant,' 1694. 
355 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

Here in truth thrusts in its ugly face the ever-recurring 
difficulty which besets literary as well as religious 
movements. The creed of the gospel which is preached 
is brought into disrepute by the acts of its apostles. 

As a result, the men who could not tolerate the plaj^s 
of the orthodox pattern were glad to shelter them- 
selves under the broad and unimpeachable heterodoxy 
of Shakespeare. Still they had been brought up to be- 
lieve in the rules they disliked. In theory they recog- 
nized their binding force, though there was always 
likelihood that in the heat of controversy they might 
speak of them disparagingly and question their value. 
As therefore they had a sort of faith in these rules, and 
full faith in the man who disregarded them, they were 
obliged to resort to the further theory that Shakespeare 
was somehow above art ; that he had received a special 
commission from Nature to do as he pleased, and that 
the mighty mother, in allowing him to penetrate into 
her profoundest mysteries, had absolved him from the 
necessity of paying heed to the restraints which held 
inferior men in check, — had permitted him to pass 
unharmed the bounds of space and time, beyond whose 
confines others could not venture with safety. The 
special exemption of the great dramatist from the oper- 
ation of general law is a distinctive feature of the dra- 
matic criticism of the eighteenth century. It has been 
more than once conveyed in passages which have been 
cited in preceding pages for a totally distinct purpose. 
It rarely if ever occurred to the men who held this view 
that the law itself might not really be binding. They 
rarely drew the inference that the art which Shakespeare 

356 



CONFLICTING EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY VIEWS 

had neglected to observe might not be art at all, but 
merely a parcel of conventions which had been dubbed 
with that title. They accepted, with grumbling perhaps, 
but still without dissent, the rules which were to regu- 
late the practice of dramatists ; but they accepted just 
as unflinchingly and much more ardently the writer who 
' had persistently violated them. 

It is clear that men of this stamp existed from the 
very beginning of the Restoration period. During the 
half-century that followed they may have been awed 
into silence by the predominance of the opposing view. 
It is not at least from anything they said themselves 
that we learn of the opinions they held ; it is from what 
is said about them by others. Their existence can- 
not be questioned. Dryden tells us, in the defence of 
his epilogue to the second part of 'The Conquest of 
Granada,' that there were those then who called the 
Elizabethan age the golden age of English poetry. The 
general belief in the superiority of Shakespeare in par- 
ticular, coupled with much ignorance on the part of 
many of what he had written, and with distinct dispar- 
agement of it on the part of a few, is conveyed unmis- 
takably in the minor literature of the latter half of 
the seventeenth century. His works were sometimes 
plundered without acknowledgment ; as frequently, how- 
ever, the pillager was anxious to secure the advan- 
tage of his name. Crowne in the prologue to the 
first part of his 'Henry VI.' bore witness in the fol- 
lowing words to the prejudice existing in favor of the 
elder dramatist : — 



357 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

" To-day we bring old gathered herbs, 't is true, 
But such as in sweet Shakespeare's garden grew. 
And all his plants immortal you esteem, 
Your mouths are never out of taste with him." 

This was said in 1680. As time went on, as the eight- 
eenth century opened, reference to these varying views 
become increasingly frequent, Dennis, in the preface 
to his alteration of 'The Merry Wives of Windsor,' 
tells us that in setting out to remodel this play, he 
found that he should have two sorts of people to deal 
with, who would equally endeavor to obstruct his suc- 
cess. The one believed it so admirable that nothing 
ought to be added to it ; the other fancied it to be so 
despicable that the time of any one would be lost in 
improving it. 

That the former class was steadily growing in num- 
bers, is made evident from the increasing violence with 
which its opinions were attacked. Rowe, in his life 
of Shakespeare prefixed to the first critical edition of 
the plays, had intimated his belief that additional learn- 
ing might have been an injury instead of a benefit to 
the dramatist. He might in consequence have become 
a more correct writer, but it was not improbable that 
the regularity and deference for rule which would have 
attended his correctness, might have restrained some of 
that fire and impetuosity and even beautiful extrava- 
gance which we admire. This is clearly an oj)inion 
then widely entertained. The declaration of it by 
Rowe called forth an earnest protest from Gildon. All 
through the essay which he prefixed to the supple- 
mentary volume of the minor poems runs a constant 

358 



CONFLICTING EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY VIEWS 

series of attacks upon the ignorant and thoughtless men 
of the age who were constantly engaged in denouncing 
the rules, and as proof of their worthlessness pointing 
to the success of Shakespeare, who had either been 
ignorant of them, or knowing them had treated them 
with contempt. 

Views of this sort were undoubtedly irritating to the 
critics of the other and then established school. In 
their eyes its unreasonableness was evident on its face. 
Of course conformity to law could not supply the place 
of genius. They quoted the concession of the French 
Academy in its controversy with Corneille that some 
regular pieces were very unsatisfactory. But had not 
this same body also pointed out so plainly that even 
the wayfaring man, though a fool, could not err, that 
in such cases it was the writers that were at fault and 
not the rules ? In so far as he had observed these, and 
so far only, was Shakespeare great. It was not his dis- 
regard of the rules which had brought him success, but 
his excellence in the expression of manners, in the dis- 
tinction of characters, in the representation of passion. 
If in addition to these he had only known the dramatic 
art, he would have occupied an altogether higher place 
than the one which he had actually attained. So argued, 
from the beginning of the eighteenth century, the ad- 
herents of the classical school. At its end we find it 
all repeated by Blair. But their most strenuous efforts 
could not uproot the lurking heresy to which some of 
their own side occasionally exhibited partiality. It is 
further manifest that there were those at that time who 
were disposed to push to an extreme their hostility to 

359 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

the so-called rules of art. They insisted that no play 
would please in which they were observed. They spoke 
of them as curbs to wit and jjoetry. This baleful error, 
as Gildon termed it, was based, in his opinion, ujDon the 
admiration which the works of Shakespeare received. 

This admiration, it was further asserted, was not due 
altogether to his excellence, but to custom. Even early 
in the eighteenth century we find the same reason given 
for his popularity which we have found expressed in the 
middle of it by Goldsmith. It was definitely stated as 
prescription. His claim rested upon the uninterrupted 
enjoyment of a long reputation of conceded superiority. 
Even then it was the correct thing to admire Shake- 
speare. He who failed to do it incurred from large and 
steadily increasing numbers the suspicion of suffering 
from arrested mental development. Of this Gildon com- 
plained again and again. Rymer's charge of the gross 
impropriety of making the chief character in a drama 
a negro, as in ' Othello,' he tells us, was unquestionably 
just ; but still, he adds, the play pleases by prescription.^ 
He furthermore confessed that he did not dare to find 
fault with many of the speeches in ' Romeo and Juliet ' 
as being not natural ; since to do so would provoke too 
many who admire it as the soul of love.^ Later in the 
century George HI. bore unwilling witness to the ex- 
istence of a sovereign whose greatness he had neither 
the taste to appreciate nor the ability to comprehend, 
but whose supremacy he was forced to recognize as being 
beyond the reach of criticism. Madame D'Arblay has 

1 Remarks on the Plays of Shakespeare (1710), in Shakespeare's 
Works, vol. X. (1728) p. 410. 

2 Ibid., p. 378. 

360 



CONFLICTING EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY VIEWS 

preserved for us a few of the choice bits of wisdom 
which were flung fortli carelessly by the royal mind. 
" Was there ever," he said to her, " such stuff as great 
part of Shakespeare ? Only one must not say so ! But 
what think you ? — What ? — Is there not sad stuff ? — 
What? — What?" Miss Burney made in reply the 
usual admission of the imperfections of the dramatist, 
but attempted to put in also the usual feeble defence of 
his possession of great counterbalancing excellences. 
" O ! " broke in the monarch, good-humoredly. " O, I 
know it is not to be said ! but it is true ! Only it is 
Shakespeare, and nobody dare abuse him." Then he 
proceeded to enumerate many of the characters and 
parts of plays to which he objected. These remarks the 
diarist unfortunately did not put down ; but the words 
with which the King concluded reveal that he felt that 
no one, even though holding his own exalted position, 
could safely venture to attack the dramatist. His crit- 
icisms were just, "but," he added, "one should be 
stoned for saying so." ^ In this matter the King agreed 
with one of his most unruly subjects. Cobbett never 
read a line of the poet until 1797, when he was thirty- 
five years old; and he formed then a low opinion of 
him. The admiration expressed for him he attributed 
to mere caprice of fashion. 

It is Dennis and Gildon who naturally furnish us 
with the fullest information as to the opinions of this 
earlier period ; for they were the two who then con- 
cerned themselves directly in Shakespearean criticism. 
We find them — especially the latter — perpetually 

1 Diary of Madam D'Arblay, vol. ii. p. 398. 
361 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

clamoring against a certain body of men who main- 
tained that if Shakespeare had been more of a critic, 
he would have been less of a poet. These persons 
could not be persuaded out o£ the belief that his mon- 
strous irregularities were really conducive to the shin- 
ing beauties that abounded in his plays. This was a 
state of mind which naturally strengthened as the rules 
were enforced upon the writer with increasing rigidity, 
but with results correspondingly depressing to both 
spectator and reader. It was to some extent shared in 
by those whose practice would rank them as belonging 
to the classical school. Rowe was certainly not deterred 
by the criticism his remarks in his life of Shakespeate 
had received, from continuing to express the same views. 
In the prologue to his tragedy of ' Jane Shore,' brought 
out in 1714, he spoke of the superiority in certain par- 
ticulars of the past to the present. Then he added the 
following comment: — 

" In such an age immortal Shakespeare wrote, 
By no quaint rules or hampering critics taught ; 
With rough majestic force he moved the heart ; 
And strength and nature made amends for art." 

It would, perhaps, not have done just then to maintain 
extravagant heretical opinions like these in sober prose. 
Men could venture upon them in the freedom of conver- 
sation ; in poetry, furthermore, they felt themselves at 
liberty to avow them audaciously. The sentiment al- 
ready indicated, which soon came to be widely preva- 
lent, is represented very satisfactorily in a few lines from 
a then somewhat popular though now long-forgotten 

362 



CONFLICTING EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY VIEWS 

piece, entitled ' The Progress of Poesy.' ^ It was pub- 
lished at least as early as 1731, and was the production 
of Mrs. Madan, a daughter of Spencer Cowper, and aunt 
of the poet of that name. In giving a running charac- 
terization of the great writers of the past and the 
present, she called special attention, in the case of 
Shakespeare, to the success he had met with in spite of 
having violated the laws of the drama. It was in these 
lines that she began her description : — 

" Exalted Shakespeare, with a boundless mind, 
Ranged far and wide, a genius unconfined ; 
The passions swayed, and captive led the heart, 
Without the critic's rules or aid of art." 

Many years later the portion of the poem which dealt 
with the dramatist was taken apart from the rest — pos- 
sibly by the authoress herself — and with great additions 
was published in a periodical under the title of ' Verses 
on Reading Shakespeare.' The same sentiment was ex- 
pressed even more strongly in the following words : — 

" What though by judgment's frigid rules he fails, 
Resistless still o'er passion he prevails. 
And spite of all his faults, the wise admire 
The daring bard and kindle at his fire." ^ 

Then followed without acknowledgment some lines 
taken from Dryden ; and the writer went on to pay the 
highest of tributes to Shakespeare, and to Garrick as his 
interpreter. Later in the century the feeling was ex- 

1 This poem was printed in 'The Flower-piece,' 1731 ; in the 'London 
Magazine' for February and March, 1759; in 'Fawkes and Woty's 
Poetical Calendar,' March, 1763 ; and it was reprinted in 1783 in a sepa- 
rate volume. The part on Shakespeare, much enlarged, can be found 
in the ' Gentleman's Magazine ' for June, 1753. 

2 Gentleman's Magazine, 1753, vol. xiii. p. 287. 

363 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

pressed still more strongly by Colman in his prologue to 

the revived ' Philaster,' in which he spoke with a good 

deal of contempt of the regular tragedies then produced 

on the English stage, and exclaimed, — 

" Say, where 's the poet, trained in pedant schools, 
Equal to Shakespeare, who o'erleaped all rules." 

Several of the citations given in preceding chapters 
to illustrate other points express an opinion not dissimi- 
lar to the foregoing. It crops out so constantly in the 
literature of the eighteenth century that it would swell 
this work to disproportionate limits to attempt to give 
even a partial representation of the wealth of material 
illustrating it wliich exists. Two further passages are 
all that need be cited here, and they are cited not for 
their merit, but on account of the frequency with which 
they were reproduced in the periodical literature of the 
time. The first is a passage from a poem comparing 
Shakespeare and Jonson, written by Samuel Rogers, 
rector of Chellington in Bedfordshire. The lines are 
dreadful as literature, but they do more than convey 
the estimate of the superiority of the former author to 
the latter, which had long been universally accepted. 
They express the then widely prevalent sentiment, that 
Shakespeare owed nothing whatever to art. In these 
lines we find the view which had come to displace the 
one that had at first held supremacy : — 

*' Great Shakespeare with genius disdaining all rules, 
Above the cold phlegm or the fripp'ry of schools, 
Appeal'd to the heart for success of his plays, 
And trusted to nature alone for the bays." ^ 

^ This poem first appeared in the ' St. James's Magazine,' vol. ii. p. 63 
(1763), and afterward in a volume of collected poems by the author. 

364 



CONFLICTING EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY VIEWS 

A few years later George Keate, the friend of Voltaire, 
addressed a poetical epistle to that author entitled ' Fer- 
ney.' In this he warmly defended Shakespeare from the 
strictures of the French writer, and spoke of him as 

" Above control, above each classic rule, 
His witness nature, and the world his school." 

Here then have been given the views of these two 
classes of critics. According to the one Shakespeare 
was irregularly great, but he would have been far 
greater, had he only known and practised the poetic art. 
According to the other, he was great because he did not 
know and practise it, because he was above it. In each 
case his incorrectness was assumed. It was conceded 
by his admirers as freely as it was strongly insisted 
upon by his severest judges. He was unquestionably 
guilty of absurdities, only they were glorious absurdities. 
Colman, for instance, wrote an essay containing an 
account of various geniuses who are represented as sac- 
rificing in the temple of Fame those portions of their 
works which have been preserved to their discredit. 
Among these Shakespeare appears, carrying to the altar 
a long string of puns, marked ' The Taste of the Age,' 
a small parcel of bombast, and a pretty large bundle of 
incorrectness. Yet a further remark in this same essay 
is noticeable, not only as indicating a view of the great- 
ness of the dramatist now becoming universal, but some 
faint conception of the fact that the criticism to which 
he had been constantly subjected was based upon a false 
theory. Aristotle is represented as saying that " although 
Shakespeare was quite ignorant of that exact economy of 
the stage which is so remarkable in the Greek writers, yet 

365 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

the mere strength of his genius had in many points car- 
ried him infinitely beyond them." ^ It was a conviction 
of the same sort that led some at about the same time 
to avow openly an opinion which had long been held by 
many in secret. This was that Shakespeare was a far 
greater dramatist than Sophocles or Euripides. His 
superiority to Corneille and Racine was assumed by 
most Englishmen as not worth discussing. But the 
remark of Colman shows that, without being aware of 
it, men were blindly feeling their way to that position, 
which Lessing was soon to state definitely, that genius 
laughs away all the boundary lines of criticism, and that 
there is much which it has first to create before we can 
recognize it as possible. The modern view was slowly 
taking outline and form. 

It was the growth of this feeling which was under- 
mining the whole foundation upon which the censure of 
Shakespeare's methods had been based. This was not 
uprooted until the following century; but it was perma- 
nently impaired. Boswell tells us in his life of Johnson 
that a blind, indiscriminate admiration of Shakespeare 
had exposed the British nation to the ridicule of foreign- 
ers. That commentator had rescued him from the in- 
jury wrought by his panegyrists in consequence of the 
masterly display he had furnished of his excellences and 
defects. Boswell's testimony is of value as to the exist- 
ence of the admiration ; but he forgot to mention that 
the defects which Johnson pointed out had come to be 
recognized, even in the time of his biographer, not as 
defects in the poet, but defects in the vision of his edi- 
1 The Adventurer, No. 90, September 15, 1753. 
366 



CONFLICTING EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY VIEWS 

tor. In the last quarter of the eighteenth century there 
was, furthermore, less and less disposition to heed foreign 
opinion, which itself was now beginning in turn to feel 
the weight of Shakespeare's influence. The disposition 
further manifested itself not to stand on the defensive, 
but to attack the holders of the opposite view. In truth, 
the advocates of the doctrines of the French school came 
to have a hard time of it in England as the eighteenth 
century drew towards its close. Even as early as 1784 
there is a scornful reference in a poem on Shakespeare 

to 

" The self -plumed tribe of modern Gaul, 

Whose powdered critics join at fashion's call 
To mock with feeble light thy noon-tide rays," ^ 

The one conclusion which the survey of eighteenth- 
century criticism brings out, above all, is that the 
appreciation of Shakespeare's art was a growth which 
steadily increased as a consequence of the increase of 
familiarity with his plays. In the latter half of the pre- 
ceding century any real knowledge of his writings was 
limited to but few. His works were not accessible to 
the generality of men. They were contained as a whole 
in large and necessarily expensive folios, incorrectly 
printed, and, strictly speaking, not edited at all. These 
volumes not many had the means to buy, and none had 
the now existing aids to understand. Furthermore the 
editions were too limited in the number of their copies 
to give a large circulation to his works. For most 

1 From a ' Khapsody ' on Shakespeare, written at Stratf ord-on-Avon, 
and published in a volume (1784) containing as the principal poem 
' Abelard to Eloisa,' by T. Warwick. It is printed in full in the ' Euro- 
pean Magazine ' for July, 1784, vol. vi. p. 55, 

367 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

men acquaintance with his plays was made through the 
medium of stage representation, and was restricted to 
the comparatively few which were then acted. This 
state of things made it possible for writers to steal much 
from his less-known pieces with little fear of detection, 
and then imply or openly assert that they had stolen 
nothing. The impudence and audacity with which this 
was occasionally done is so great as to awaken a certain 
feeling of respect. In 1682 Durfey converted 'Cym- 
beline ' into a play entitled ' The Fatal Wager.' Not 
the slightest indication was given of its origin. The 
name of Shakespeare appears neither on the title-page 
nor anywhere else. Even the effect of the intimation 
in the prologue that the play was a revived one was 
destroyed by the statement in the epilogue that the 
piece had been written nine years before. Similarly the 
version of 'The Taming of the Shrew,' attributed to 
the actor, Lacy, which was entitled ' Sawney the Scot,' 
contains no reference whatever to the original author. 
This may have been accident ; for the reputed adapter 
had been long dead when the comedy was printed. But 
in this matter the palm for bold impudent lying must be 
awarded to Crowne. In the dedication of the first part 
of his ' Henry VI.' to Sedley, he declared that he used 
his patron's name to support his venture through the 
press, as he had previously used Shakespeare's to sup- 
port it on the stage. Yet Shakespeare, he added, had 
no title to the fortieth part of the play. As even the 
slightest comparison would have disclosed the falsity of 
the statement, its utterance must be regarded both as a 
tribute to the influence of Shakespeare's name with the 

368 



CONFLICTING EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY VIEWS 

public, and as a testimony to their ignorance of his less- 
known writings. 

All this condition of things underwent change, as 
soon as critical editions of Shakespeare plays began to 
follow one another, beginning with Rowe's of 1709. As 
these became more numerous, the ability to have his 
works in one's own possession came within the reach of 
all. Hence the critical cant which had once run almost 
unchallenged began to come in contact with the indepen- 
dent judgment of a cultivated class who formed their 
opinions by a direct study of the writings of the drama- 
tist. To this was due the growing dislike of the altera- 
tions which has been already mentioned. To it was due 
the growing recognition of his greatness as a writer of 
comedy as well as of tragedy. For a long period ' The 
Merry Wives of Windsor' was frequently, perhaps 
usually, spoken of as his best work in the former kind of 
composition. This was partly because in character and 
treatment it approaches nearer to that Plautian and Te- 
rentian model which the classicists held sacred than 
plays like 'The Tempest,' 'Twelfth Night,' and 'As 
You Like It,' which ascend wholly or at intervals into 
a higher spiritual atmosphere. 

Still how late was the development of the critical 
appreciation of Shakespeare can be seen in the view 
taken at different periods of his female characters. 
One can hardly enlarge upon the beauty of these now 
without subjecting himself to the reproach of uttering 
commonplace. In foreign as well as English-speaking 
lands men of the highest order of mind have paid them 
the tribute of unquestioning homage. No literature of 
24 369 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

the imagination presents a gallery of portraits like those 
of Miranda, Juliet, Portia, Imogen, Isabella, and a score 
besides, each one distinctly different from the rest, but in 
their different ways all alike beautiful. We recognize 
their charm so plainly that it would seem a matter of 
wonder that it could escape the notice of the blindest 
observer. Yet a view which appears to us a mere 
matter of course did not so strike our ancestors. The 
admiration now so universally felt is but a little more 
than a century old, at least as regards its expression. 
Venturesome as it is to affirm a negative — I therefore 
speak it under correction — I am fairly confident that 
critical literature for the more than hundred years which 
followed the Restoration will be searched in vain for a 
passage implying the slightest recognition of the purity, 
the delicacy, and the loftiness of the female characters 
of Shakespeare. He received unbounded credit for his 
skill in characterization, but it was always the charac- 
terization of his masculine heroes. 

In truth, for a long period either nothing whatever is 
said about the heroines, or what is said is distinctly 
derogatory. Rymer's contemptuous mention of Desde- 
mona has already been given.* She fared no better at 
the hands of Gildon. He looked upon Otway, whom 
he called his master, as unquestionably superior in the 
portrayal of female character. " 'T is true," he wrote, 
" every man can not succeed in every passion ; some 
that touch those that are the more manly with energy 
and force enough, are awkward and calm in the more 
tender. Shakespeare that drew Othello so finely has 

1 See p. 278. 
370 



CONFLICTING EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY VIEWS 

made but a scurvy piece of Desdemona ; and Otway 
alone seemed to promise a master in every kind." ^ He 
reiterated tliis view a few years later in his remarks on 
the plays of Shakespeare. "It must be owned," he 
wrote, " that Shakespeare drew men better than women, 
to whom indeed he has seldom given any considerable 
place in his plays." No one needs to be told that the 
criticism in the first clause is as well founded as the fact 
asserted in the last. Yet neither is by any means un- 
exampled. Years before Rowe had implied a not dis- 
similar view of the dramatist's powers in the prologue 
to his tragedy of 'The Ambitious Stepmother.' In 
that occur the following hnes : — 

" Shakespeare, whose genius to itself a law, 
Could men iu every height of nature draw 
And copied all but women that he saw." 

Ridiculous as this opinion may seem to us, it was 
long the belief of many and possibly of most. Montes- 
quieu, who was in England in 1730, records a conversa- 
tion in which Queen Caroline took part on occasion of 
his presentation at the court. It turned on the dramas 
of Shakespeare. The queen asked Lord Chesterfield, 
who was present, why it was that Shakespeare had made 
his women talk so wretchedly and act so like fools. 
Chesterfield had his answer ready, and Montesquieu 
regarded it as satisfactory as far as it went. Women, 
he said, did not appear on the stage in the time of 
Elizabeth. Their parts were taken by bad actors, and 
therefore the writers did not put forth any pains to 
make them speak well. For good all-round ignorance 
1 Preface to 'Love's Victim' (1701). 
371 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

this explanation is hard to equal. Montesquieu thought 
he could better it by contributing still another reason. 
In order to make women talk well, he observed, it is 
necessary to know the usages of the world and the man- 
ners of good society. To have men talk like heroes, 
it is only necessary to study books.^ This conclusion 
left Shakespeare in what he himself would have called 
a parlous case. According to the general opinion of his 
critics, he knew nothing worth speaking of about books. 
As a consequence he could not draw men. On the 
other side he was shut out from high society. Accord- 
ingly he could not draw women. 

Montesquieu can be excused for accepting and even 
improving upon the opinion of others in a matter about 
which he himself knew nothing at all. It is clear that 
the views he reported were current. They strike us 
now as almost inconceivably silly. Yet Queen Caroline 
was very far from being a fool. In the knowledge of 
literature we know that she surpassed immeasurably 
her grandson who thought that so much of Shakespeare 
was sad stuff. Chesterfield too, limited in many ways 
as was his taste, was destitute of neither sense nor in- 
sight. We can in truth almost pardon the lack of appre- 
ciativeness in them when we find a professed student of 
the dramatist expressing not essentially dissimilar views. 
" Shakespeare," wrote Upton, " seems to me not to have 
known such a character as a fine lady ; nor does he ever 
recognize their dignity. . . . Instead of the Lady Bettys 
and Lady Fannys, who shine so much in modern come- 
dies, he brings you on the stage plain Mrs. Ford and 

1 (Euvres de Montesquieu, vol. vii. p. 358 (ed. of 1822). 
372 



CONFLICTING EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY VIEWS 

Mrs. Page, two honest good-humored wives of two plain 
country gentlemen. His tragic ladies are rather seen 
than heard ; such as Miranda, Desdemona, Ophelia, and 
Portia." 1 Further he observed that the less that women 
appear on the stage, generally the better is the story ; 
and unmarried women are left entirely out in his best 
plays, as in ' Macbeth,' ' Othello,' ' Julius Cassar.' This 
must be regarded as most extraordinary criticism, that 
is, if anything in criticism can be deemed extraordi- 
nary. There is a hopeless, helpless imbecility about 
it which makes us realize that Shakespeare did not have 
to wait till later times to exercise his peculiar power 
of tui-ning the brains of even sensible men and mak- 
ing them talk unmitigated drivel. For Upton was a 
scholar and in some ways a man of decided ability. 
He had read, furthermore, the works he thus criticised, 
even though he had read them to so little purpose. If 
such a man could entertain such an opinion, we need 
not wonder at the prevalence of mistaken beliefs on 
the part of others who derived the little knowledge they 
had of Shakespeare from hearsay. 

It is not until 1775 that I have come across a view of 
Shakespeare's female characters at all resembling the 
one now universally held. It occurs in a fragmentary 
poem contained in a novel which came out that year 
entitled ' The Correspondents.' This consisted of let- 
ters which purport to have passed between Lord Lyttle- 
ton, who had died two years before, and the woman who 
became the wife of his son. The correspondence was 
spurious, but for a while was deemed genuine in certain 

1 Critical Observations on Shakespeare (1746), p. 83. 
373 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

quarters, and on that account occasioned a certain 
degree of interest. But it excited then more attention 
and deserves more now for the tribute it paid to the 
skill of the dramatist in delineating female character. 
The writer of the work was probably a woman ; but 
whether so or not, the poem mentioned celebrated in 
the most glowing terms the fact that wise unerring 
nature had made Shakespeare both the judge and friend 
of womankind. The innocence of Miranda, the virgin- 
honor of Isabella, the filial affection of Cordelia, the 
wisdom of Portia, in fine, all the characteristics of the 
various female characters that appear in his pages, are 
made the subject of recognition and of eulogy. Con- 
temporary criticism in the leading magazine of the day 
spoke of this piece of poetry as having placed Shake- 
speare " in a new point of view." ^ 

Undoubtedly similar opinions had been entertained 
long before, even though not expressed. They were, 
so to speak, in the air. Le Tourneur, about this time 
engaged in the translation of Shakespeare into French, 
and a man evidently of peculiar delicacy and refine- 
ment, was struck b}^ the beauty of these female char- 
acters, and so expressed himself when his version 
appeared. Even the year before the novel just men- 
tioned came out, Richardson had devoted to Imogen 
one of the essays in his volume on the characters of 
Shakespeare. It was not indeed a very illuminating 
or inspiring treatise. We hardly feel ourselves much 
advanced when we are told, as he tells us, that "if we 

1 Gentleman's Magazine, August, 1775, vol. xlv. p. 371. The poem 
can be found on p. 394. 

374 



CONFLICTING EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY VIEWS 

see a man deeply affected, we are persuaded that he has 
suffered some dreadful calamit}^ or that he believes it 
to be so." Still these occasional outbreaks of the plati- 
tudinous ought not to hinder our recognition of the 
fact that he regarded the heroine of Cymbeline as 
more distinctly worthy of study than the men who ap- 
pear in that play. Some years later to his treatise 
dealing with certain other personages of the Shake- 
spearean drama, Richardson appended a general dis- 
quisition about the female characters found in it, in 
the guise of a letter to a friend. The friend, whether 
real or imaginary, had taken the then common ground 
that these characters were inferior to the male ones 
portrayed by the poet. It was a view which Richardson 
stoutly combated. His antagonist, it must be confessed, 
was an easy prey ; and some of the opinions ascribed to 
him are so absurd that it seems as if they could not 
have been invented, but must have been the j)roduction 
of a real personage. It was not, however, the contents of 
this so-called letter that make it noteworthy. It is the 
fact that it is the first professional estimate of the kind 
in our literature ; that it is the first instance in which 
criticism exhibits perception of an excellence which it 
would seem to have required peculiar dulness to miss. 

The growth of the appreciation of Shakespeare was 
far from being confined to the estimate taken of the 
female characters he had portrayed. It extended all 
along the line. We have seen how belief in the car- 
dinal principles of the school which upheld the regular 
drama had been slowly but steadily sapped during the 
eighteenth century, and maintained nothing but a lin- 

375 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

gering life as it reached its close. But though the 
house was being swept and garnished, its rightful occu- 
pant had not yet come to take possession. It is only 
in Maurice Morgann's essay on the dramatic character 
of Sir John Falstaff that I seem to see indicated dimly 
the view of Shakespeare which was developed in the 
nineteenth century, and which reigns triumphant to- 
day. The agencies which had been working for it had 
been in existence from the beginning, but they then 
worked under the surface rather than in the open day. 
It was not advocated by any body of persons like the 
two just described, constituting distinct critical classes. 
Yet its influence can be traced even when it was least 
apparent. Animated by that ardent devotion with 
which a great writer inspires his adherents, it took the 
ground, either avowedly or by implication, that the cen- 
sures passed upon Shakespeare were unjustifiable ; that 
the things for which he was condemned were the things 
for which he should be praised ; and that the criticism 
which represented him as being deficient in art was itself 
based upon ignorance of what really constituted art. It 
must be admitted that it was at first a blind faith rather 
than one which rested upon knowledge. It contented 
itself with believing in Shakespeare ; it rarely went far- 
ther than to maintain that anything which Shakespeare 
did was right because it was what Shakespeare did. 

From the very outset, however, this view was felt 
even where it was not distinctly perceived. While 
it did not proclaim itself openly, it exhibited the dis- 
position to resent any attack that was made upon its 
favorite. Dryden, full of praise as he was for his great 

376 



CONFLICTING EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY VIEWS 

predecessor, fell under severe censure for the attitude 
which he at first occasionally ventured to take. As 
time passed on, tliis disposition became more pro- 
nounced. Pope complained of it. Whether he did so 
in pretence or earnest is of no consequence, so long 
as his words bear witness to the fact itself. In what 
seems to us a peculiarly unnecessary protest against the 
preference exhibited in his own day for the writers of 
the past, he took occasion to pay his respects to those 
who insisted that Shakespeare should receive praise for 
practices which really merited condemnation. He pro- 
fessed indignation that men should censure modern works, 
not because they were bad, but because they were new ; 

" While if our elders break all reason's laws, 
These fools demand not pardon, but applause," 

That the allusion was here to the dramatist is made 
further evident by the fact that these lines immediately 
precede the following passage in which direct reference 
is made to the criticism to which those became subject 
who presumed to point out errors in Shakespeare's 
writings : — 

" On Avon's bank, where flowers eternal blow, 
If I but ask if any weed can grow; 
One tragic sentence if I dare deride 
Which Betterton's grave action dignified, 
Or well-mouthed Booth with emphasis proclaims, 
Though but perhaps a muster-roll of names. 
How will our fathers rise up in a rage, 
And swear all shame is lost in George's age ! " ^ 

The necessity of conforming the sentiments of his 
imitation to those of the Latin original compelled Pope 
1 Imitations of Horace, Epistle to Augustus (1737), lines 119-126. 

377 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

to ascribe to the fathers what could have been true of 
his immediate contemporaries only, and to give to their 
feelings also too heightened a color. But, however 
exaggerated his words may be as a representation of 
the view generally entertained in his age, as unques- 
tionably they are exaggerated, they had a certain 
foundation of fact then, and have now become essen- 
tially exact as a representation of the view prevalent 
to-day. The sweep of the revolution which has taken 
place during the more than one hundred and fifty years 
that have gone by since they were written, could find 
no better illustration of itself than in the reception 
which would now be accorded to criticisms of the kind 
which have been quoted in the preceding pages. No 
one is likely at the present day to entertain the opinions 
contained in the passages cited ; at least he can be 
relied on, in that case, not to express them, if he has 
any regard for his own reputation. For the feeling 
that with us holds Shakespeare as practically faultless 
is even more tyrannical than that which once pro- 
nounced him as abounding in faults. It endures no 
contradiction. It is inclined to be impatient with any- 
thing which savors of even the mildest form of criti- 
cism. Nor does it base itself any longer upon mere 
sentiment. It rests, according to its own full convic- 
tion, upon scientific demonstration. It insists that 
Shakespeare's work was not, as was one time the com- 
mon cry, a result due to the agency of a gigantic 
natural force, acting independently of law, but of one 
in which truth, to nature has had added unto it the 
perfection of highest art. 

378 



CHAPTER X 

SHAKESPEARE AS DRAMATIST AND MORALIST 

Hardly a generation passes in which some one — 
frequently some one of considerable ability and reputa- 
tion — does not come forward to show us the utter 
insufficiency of Shakespeare ; to inform us that he is 
obsolete; to demonstrate in the most incontrovertible 
way that the interest in his productions is purely facti- 
tious, begotten of traditional beliefs and prejudices, kept 
alive not by any real liking, but by a blind unreasoning 
faith in the duty to admire. Were his works now 
brought out for the first time, divested consequently of 
the repute which has gathered about them from the com- 
mendations of successive generations, we are assured 
that they would meet with scant success upon the stage, 
if indeed with any success at all. A modern audience 
would not care for them; in all probability it would 
refuse to give them more than a single trial. 

This is the doctrine which has been preached at fre- 
quent intervals during the past two hundred years. 
Two or three illustrations of it have been given in the 
course of this work. It turns up, indeed, with the reg- 
ularity of certain epidemics. It is preached, too, with all 
that fervor of conviction which so often does duty for 
reason and truth. Occasionally some are impressed by 
it ; at least they think they are. Its futility, however, 

379 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

is shown by the fact that nobody ever takes serious 
offence at it or at him who proclaims it. One would as 
soon think of feeling indignation at the man who denies 
the doctrine of gravitation or insists that the sun re- 
volves about the earth. The world accordingly listens 
with a sort of pleased wonder at this regularly recurring 
exposure of Shakespeare's pretensions as a dramatist. 
It is inclined to approve of the utterance of these specu- 
lations which disturb temporarily the monotony of es- 
tablished beliefs. It is entertained for a while by the 
criticism ; it is often struck with an honest admiration for 
the cleverness of the critic. Then it proceeds to forget 
what is written, and in process of time to forget its writer. 
In contrast with all the other writers for the English 
stage one fact in the case of Shakespeare stands out con- 
spicuously. No year goes by without witnessing the per- 
formance of some of his plays somewhere. We do not 
need to stop even here. Not a year has gone by since the 
theatre was re-opened at the Restoration, which has not 
seen pieces of his acted. No other playwright of our 
tongue has such a record. The assertion used once to 
be made, and is sometimes repeated now, that Garrick 
was the first to make Shakespeare popular. Nothing 
could be farther from the truth. That greatest of actors 
undoubtedly did much to deepen the impression which 
the greatest of dramatists had already made upon the 
theatre-going public. His wonderful impersonations of 
certain characters gave to many a clearer and higher 
conception of the meaning and power that lay in the 
words he recited. But while he strengthened the inter- 
est men felt, he was very far from being the first to 

380 



SHAKESPEARE AS DRAMATIST AND MORALIST 

create it. Long before Garrick was born, Shakespeare 
had been constantly styled the matchless, the inimitable, 
the divine. Ample testimony can be produced from the 
latter part of the seventeenth century to establish the 
fact of his increasing popularity ; to prove how steadily 
he had even then passed all other playwrights in the 
general estimation, leaving behind him in particular, 
Fletcher, who for a while had been preferred by the or- 
dinary mass of theatre-goers, and Ben Jonson, whose 
superiority had been insisted upon by the select few. 
Early in the eighteenth century the dramatist, John 
Hughes, bore witness to the still earlier reputation of 
the great master. Writing to the ' Guardian ' in the 
character of an old man, he expressed his pleasure 
above all things "in observing that the tragedies of 
Shakespeare, which in my youthful days have so fre- 
quently filled my eyes with tears, hold their rank still 
and are the great support of the theatre."^ 

Every generation has its temporary dramatic favorites ; 
at times, even every year. They come and go. Shake- 
speare always remains. They are cried up for a while 
and then neglected. He alone endures. His greatness 
as a poet will explain the constantly increasing circula- 
tion of his works in the world of readers. In that as in 
other things he has broken all records. It was as true 
of him at the beginning as it is now. That he was the 
most popular dramatist of his time, while he was writing 
for the stage, admits of no real question, though it has 
sometimes been questioned. But it is further true that 
his plays, so far as they were allowed to be printed, 

1 No. 37, April 23, 1713. 
381 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

proved as successful witli readers as they were with 
auditors. It is to be kept iu mind that not only was the 
population of England then comparatively small, but also 
that the proportion of those interested in books was com- 
paratively smaller than now. Nearly all the dramatists 
whose productions were published had to be content 
with a single edition. Occasional exceptions there are 
in the case of particular plays : but they are only occa- 
sional. The fact was true in most instances of Ben 
Jonson, at the very time he ranked at the head of Eng- 
lish men of letters. It was not true of Shakespeare. 
Of the sixteen plays which were published in quarto 
form during his lifetime, the large majority appeared 
before his death in more than one edition, five of them 
in several. The only author of the whole period who 
has approached anywhere his success in this respect was 
Fletcher ; and Fletcher's success, so far as it went, did 
not take place until he had been some time in his grave. 
A like statement is true of the complete editions of the 
plays. Shakespeare was the first dramatist of his time 
whose works public interest caused to be brought out in 
a collected form ; for the production of the Ben Jonson 
folio of 1616 was the act of the author himself, and not 
of his admirers. Furthermore, when once published, 
no one of his contemporaries equalled him in the fre- 
quency of republication during the century in which his 
death took place. Since that century no one has ap- 
proached him even distantly. He is so far first that 
there is no second in sight. 

But while the inherent worth of his matter will ac- 
count for his popularity with those who read, it cannot 

382 



SHAKESPEARE AS DRAMATIST AND MORALIST 

altogether explain the hold which he has retained upon 
those who come merely to hear. The recital of beauti- 
ful poetry is sure to be attractive to a certain limited 
number, but unaided it will never keep long the at- 
tention of the great mass of men. How then shall we 
account for the continued success of Shakespeare as a 
writer not for the closet but for the stage ? For even 
here he has done much more than retain the grasp which 
he early acquired over the prepossessions of his own race 
in his favor. Interest in his pieces as acting pieces has 
extended over no small share of the civilized world. It 
has triumphed over the disadvantage of translation. 
And desirous as are men to see his works played, equally 
desirous are men to play them. No aspiring actor of our 
race feels that he has won his spurs, that he has achieved 
the highest distinction in liis art, until he has made his 
mark in some Shakespearean character. This is true 
at least of the tragic stage. Other playwrights make 
demand upon histrionic ability : to gain pre-eminent 
success in Shakespearean rei:)resentation evinces his- 
trionic genius. So it has been in the past; so it will 
be in the future. In the history of the English theatre 
there is not a tragedian of the first rank, from the 
days of Betterton to the present time, whose name is 
not associated with some of the plays of the greatest of 
English dramatists. None the less his total unfitness to 
satisfy the requirements of the modern audience will 
be demonstrated again and again. But his works will 
continue to be performed long after these successive 
demonstrations of his unfitness to please have passed 
entirely from the memory of men. 

383 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

For this world-wide and constantly increasing success 
there is but one rational explanation. I have sought to 
show in the preceding chapters that Shakespeare was not 
only a great dramatic artist, but that — so far at least as 
English literature is concerned — he is the great dra- 
vmatic artist. In that fact lies the secret of his hold 
upon successive generations of the men of his own race, 
and of the extension of it over the men of alien races. 
It is the perfection of his art which has enabled his 
productions to outlive the hostile criticism which once 
decried his methods as irregular, and the results as 
monstrous. Of all the idle suppositions, in the infinite 
number of idle suppositions which have been put forth 
about Shakespeare, none is more baseless than the one 
which so long held sway, that he was an intellectually 
irresponsible man of genius, who wrote solely under the 
pressure of circumstances, or under the compulsion of a 
momentary overwhelming insj^iration, doing his work 
without being conscious of what it was he did or why he 
did it. It almost passes human comprehension to imag- 
ine how any one could have read with care the second 
scene of the second act of ' Hamlet ' and not have recog- 
nized the profound interest the dramatist took in his art, 
as well as his knowledge of its theory. Yet this indif- 
ference and ignorance on his part was the cant of the 
one hundred and fifty years that followed the Restora- 
tion. Nor has it yet died out entirely, though uttered 
now with bated breath and faltering voice. We begin 
at last to recognize the applicability to Shakespeare of 
Lessing's dictum, that while the great critic may not be 
a great poet, the great poet is invariably a great critic. 

384 



SHAKESPEARE AS DRAMATIST AND MORALIST 

By this he means he judges scrutinizingly the methods 
he adopts, and does not adopt them unless approved by 
his judgment. Whatever he does, therefore, is done 
consciously. The conclusions he reaches may be wrong. 
If wrong, he must abide by the consequences of his mis- 
takes. But if the great artist choose erroneously, he 
likewise chooses deliberately. It is never with him a 
haphazard blundering either upon the wrong or the^/ 
right. 

Time has largely swept away the cloud of learned de- 
traction which once gathered about the name of Shake- 
speare under the guise of upholding art. We are coming 
to recognize that the course he followed was not due to 
his ignorance of the rules upon which his critics insisted, 
but upon his knowledge of their inapplicability. His 
independence he showed in other ways. We have the 
right, for instance, to infer, not merely from his general 
but from his particular conduct, that he cared nothing 
for that laborious and pedantic trifling which aims to 
make the creations of the imagination conform to the 
results — the frequently changing results also — of the 
latest historical and archgeological investigation. It is 
quite clear from Ben Jonson's words that his endow- 
ment of Bohemia with a sea-coast had provoked contem- 
porary criticism. It is hardly possible to suppose him to 
have remained ignorant of the mistake. Yet he clearly 
did not take it to heart: he certainly never troubled 
himself to have the passage altered. Greene's authority 
was enough for him, as it was for putting Delphos on an 
island. Unquestionably there is a point beyond which 
the defiance of the known and actual ought never to go. 
25 385 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

But it is a point that varies from age to age. It must 
always be fixed by the knowledge which the ordinary 
reader or hearer may be presumed to have then, not by 
the more accurate knowledge of which later times may 
become possessed. This view needs to be insisted upon 
in an age like the present, when writers of works of 
imasrination seem too often to feel themselves con- 
strained to make their facts accord precisely with the 
conclusions of scholarly research, and in consequence 
spend strength upon collecting tithes of mint and anise 
and cumin, with the inevitable result of neglecting the 
weightier matters of the law. It is the business of the 
poet or the novelist to paint men; it is of altogether 
secondary importance to paint their costumes. 

But if time has vindicated the artistic truthfulness of 
Shakespeare's practice, the vindication it has brought 
does not involve the assumption that he invariably lived 
up to his own ideals. However conformable to the high- 
est art were his general methods, few there are who will 
be disposed to maintain that he committed no errors of 
detail. His most enthusiastic admirers have not sought 
to deny the occurrence in his writings of things repre- 
hensible and indefensible. All which they have pro- 
tested against is the disposition to attach to these lapses 
a consequence which is out of all proportion to their 
real importance. Shakespeare's indulgence in that low- 
est form of intellectual depravity, quibbles and plays 
upon words, cannot be questioned. It was the literary 
vice of his time. Several of his greatest contemporaries 
were addicted to it also. But in an age where most men 
were vicious, he was the most vicious of all. Further- 

386 



SHAKESPEARE AS DRAMATIST AND MORALIST 

more, this belief in the conformity of his methods with 
the requirements of the highest art is consonant with the 
admission that inaccuracies and inadvertences appear 
not unfrequently in his works. There are a number of 
instances where, owing either to rapidity of composition, 
or to inattention, or to subsequent alteration, a fact or a 
condition of things in one part of the play is not made 
congruous with a fact or condition in another part. To 
reconcile these discrepancies commentators have felt 
themselves obliged to put forth labored explanations. 
It was at one time not an unfrequent practice with them 
to impute inconsistencies of tliis sort — in fact, anything 
else to which they took a dislike — to the unauthorized 
interpolations of actors. This may have been true in 
some instances ; it can hardly have been true in all. At 
best the assumption is a purely conjectural one ; and so 
long as not a particle of evidence can be adduced in its 
support, we are forbidden to plead any such defence 
for what appears. 

Far worse than these — which even when taken col- 
lectively are of little real importance — are occasionally 
found serious violations of the truth of life. These 
abound in the works of many, one might fairly say of 
most, dramatists. They are infrequent in Shakespeare ; 
but they nevertheless occur. Such, for instance, is the 
offer of Valentine to surrender the woman he loves and 
who loves him to the faithless Proteus who has deserted 
his own mistress and acted a treacherous part towards 
his friend.^ The conviction of the impropriety of this 
representation has been so general that efforts of all 
1 Two Gentlemen of Verona, act v. sc. 4. 
387 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

sorts have been put forth to explain away a proceeding 
which is as indefensible dramatically as it is morally. 
The jurist Blackstone proposed to transfer the speech to 
Thurio. Coleridge had no doubt of the passage being 
corrupt, or at least unfinished. By others we are told 
that the offer is characteristic of the romantic ideas prev- 
alent in that day as to the obligations which the tie of 
friendship imposed. But this is a tribute which love 
could never have paid to friendship in any period. Fur- 
thermore, it would have been morally wrong to have 
paid it here ; for it affected the lives of others as well as 
that of the man who makes the offer. Even could it be 
accepted as a true picture of the feelings and ideas of 
some particular century, its appearance in this place 
gives it a character of universality. It is therefore in- 
excusable. Shakespeare was not of an age, but for all 
time. His representation of life should in consequence 
V be true of all time. Such it usually is ; and it has sur- 
vived because it is independent of changes of taste or 
custom. 

There are found in his works a few such variations 
from what we feel to be just and natural, though per- 
haps none so noticeable as this. They belong to de- 
tails, and not to any single work as a whole. To this 
there is one exception, — the comedy of ' All 's Well 
that Ends Well.' It is a play which has never met 
with much favor on the modern stage. First revived 
by Giffard, in 1741, at his theatre in Goodman's Fields, 
it was acted, a few times after that, during the rest of 
the century, at both Drury Lane and Covent Garden. 
But the success it met with, such as it was, came mainly 

388 



SHAKESPEARE AS DRAMATIST AND MORALIST 

from the representation of ParoUes and the episode of 
his exposure and disgrace. It was but little due to the 
interest inspired by the story itself or by its chief char- 
acters. Not even the genius of Shakespeare has been 
equal to making men accept with pleasure the plot of 
this comedy, or to respond very warmly to the eulo- 
giums passed upon the heroine, worthy of admiration 
as she is in many ways. Of the hero hardly any one 
has ever been found to say a good word. "I cannot 
reconcile my heart to Bertram," wrote Dr. Johnson: 
" a man noble without generosity, and young without 
truth ; who marries Helen as a coward, and leaves her 
as a profligate: when she is dead by his unkindness, 
sneaks home to a second marriage, is accused by a 
woman he has wronged, defends himself by falsehood, 
and is dismissed to happiness." This hostile estimate, 
in spite of its injustice, has set the style of most of the 
comment upon the hero of the piece ; while no amount 
of praise has been thought too lavish to spend upon the 
heroine. 

As Bertram is drawn, it must be admitted that he 
is not a highly estimable personage. Morally the best 
thing to his credit is a high degree of merely brute 
valor, while intellectually his lack of perspicacity makes 
him an easy prey to the pretensions of a braggart and 
a coward. But so far as his relations with the heroine 
are concerned, there is a good deal to be said on his 
side. He has forced upon him a wife he does not 
desire. Not merely are his own inclinations disre- 
garded, but his pride of birth is outraged. He is a 
victim, and by no means a willing victim. He natu- 

389 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

rally hates the chains which have been imposed upon 
him by a power to which he is constrained to submit. 
Nor can any excellence in Helen's character counter- 
balance the fundamental fact that she has been untrue 
to her sex. She persistently pursues a man who is not 
merely indifferent but averse. The situation is not 
made less, but even more disagreeable by its being a 
chase on her part of a man not worth following. All 
the explanations given of her conduct, all the tributes 
paid to her character, cannot veil the fact that she 
takes advantage of the favor of the king to do an essen- 
tially unwomanly act. Higher station or great supe- 
riority of fortune might justify a woman in going a 
long way in making advances to a lover of lower posi- 
tion, who for that very reason would naturally be reluc- 
tant to put forward his pretensions. But Helen has no 
such excuse. Whatever be her intellectual and moral 
excellence, she has nothing which he cares for to give 
to the husband upon whom she has forced herself in the 
face of his outspoken unwillingness. In real life we 
know how we should all think and feel in such a case. 
Our sympathies would not go out to the successful 
schemer, but to the hunted man who is compelled to 
have associated with him in the closest relation of life a 
woman for whom he feels dislike. So far from believ- 
ing with Johnson that Bertram is dismissed to happi- 
ness, we may be sure that under ordinary conditions 
nothing but misery will be the fate of a couple where 
the consciousness of difference of station would add to 
the estrangement produced by difference of character, 
and where fraud has been the only agency to bring 

890 



SHAKESPEARE AS DRAMATIST AND MORALIST 

about the consummation of a union which could never 
have been effected in the first place save by force. 

It is rarely the case, however, that Shakespeare out- 
rao-es our feelings, as in the two instances just described. 
On the other hand, we have constant occasion to ob- 
serve how vigilantly everything has been foreseen and 
cared for, so that nothing may jar upon our conceptions 
of the natural and the proper. Upon all the acts and 
actors in his drama was almost invariably fixed the 
keenest critical sense, though it was sometimes not the 
sense of later and inferior critics. No other dramatist 
in our tongue, in dealing with his characters, has been 
so uniformly consistent in the adaptation of means to 
ends, so solicitous to order events that nothing shall 
seem improbable or out of the way. In reading the 
works of many of his contemporaries we feel that the 
personages of their plays talk and act as in real life no 
rational beings could be expected to talk and act under 
the circumstances. They resort to the most unheard 
of and unnatural devices to bring about the results at 
which they aim. The moment, indeed, we subject to 
scrutiny a scene of Shakespeare's with a similar one 
attempted by an imitator, we recognize at once that 
careful preparation in the adaptation of means to ends V 
which is characteristic of the highest art. 

Contrast in this matter his ' Tempest ' with ' The Sea 
Voyage ' of Fletcher. In both plays it is necessary that 
the audience should be informed of how the situation 
depicted came to exist. In ' The Tempest ' it is done 
with the perfection of naturalness. Miranda has never 
heard the circumstances under which as a child she has 

391 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

been brought to the island. It is something which we 
should expect her to have learned long before. It was 
natural that she should have sought to know it; she 
tells us that she has made inquiry about it time and 
again. But the information has been withheld for 
satisfactory reasons until it became necessary that the 
audience should possess it as well as she. Accordingly 
nothing is said or done which is not fitting in itself and 
fitting to the occasion. In ' The Sea Voyage, ' on the 
contrary, there is no trace of this careful art. There 
Sebastian proceeds in the crudest way to give Nicusa, 
his companion in misfortune, the fullest information as 
to how they both came there, though the one who is 
told knows just as much about it as the one who is 
telling him. In such a case it is really the author who 
is usurping a part for the benefit of the audience, not 
a character who is carrying on the proper business of 
the play. 

Of this most common of sins against dramatic pro- 
priety — one indeed most difficult of all to shun — 
Shakespeare is very seldom guilty in even a venial 
form. His freedom from it was not the result of mere 
lucky accident. It was due to nothing less than the 
skilful evolution of a plot carefully planned and thor- 
oughly thought out. It was this which led him to 
refrain from the introduction of speeches or circum- 
stances that offend our sense of the congruous or fit- 
ting. He had not simply an intuitive perception of the 
minds of the personages he set out to portray, but a 
strength and sweep of imagination which enabled him 
to project himself into any situation in which they 

392 



SHAKESPEARE AS DRAMATIST AND MORALIST 

might be placed, to share their feelings, to think their 
thoughts, and to say their words. Hence it was that 
his contemporaries, as well as we, recognized the per- 
fect propriety of everything that took place in his 
dramas. Hence it was that from the outset he came to 
be considered the representative of nature. The story 
he adopts for his theme may be improbable; it may 
even be impossible. That it should be one which 
would be accepted by his audience was all that he-/ 
asked. So much given, he made no further demand 
upon human credulity. Every one acts as it is right 
and suitable he should act under the circumstances. 
He recognized that there is a limit in this respect 
beyond which the dramatist ought never to go. We 
accept the improbability of the plot. We give our 
faith to the fable, however extravagant, because the 
author has a prescriptive right to require it; because, 
furthermore, fiction cannot assume anything stranger 
than what fact actually presents. But while we accept 
improbability in the plot as a whole, what we do not 
accept is improbability in the details. We demand 
that the characters shall act in accordance with the 
motives which under the given conditions would and 
should dominate their conduct. The author must not 
seek to impose upon our belief a course of proceeding 
which experience and reason both teach us the char- 
acter would never have adopted in real life. 

Of course there is always danger of our being misled 
by our own limited knowledge and observation. Be- 
cause a particular line of conduct would not be taken 
by men, as we see them about us, under ordinary- 
SOS 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

conditions, it by no means follows that it would be 
unnatural in persons who are operated upon by agencies 
whose scope and power nothing in our own experience 
has furnished us with the means of judging. Much of 
the mistaken criticism which has been a^Dplied to the 
acts of Shakespeare's characters is due either to imper- 
fect comprehension of the personage portrayed, or to 
^ imperfect acquaintance with the behavior of men under 
exceptional circumstances. The commentator too fre- 
quently considers ordinary course of conduct as universal, 
and ordinary feelings as ruling ones under extraordinary 
conditions. One critic accordingly takes exception to 
the naturalness of certain proceedings in one place; 
another critic to something else in another place. These 
are usually the misapprehensions of those who draw 
their inferences from their own limited observation of 
life, and not from Shakespeare's limitless knowledge. 

Of the scores of mistaken judgments of this sort that 
might be cited, let us take one from * Lear. ' Joseph 
Warton, in the course of a criticism upon that tragedy, 
brought as an objection to it the utter improbability 
of Gloucester's imagining, though blind, that he had 
thrown himself from the summit of Dover cliff.* The 
objection has been repeated in the present century by 
a commentator generally so clear-headed as Hunter.^ 
It was regarded at the time by Colman as a just 
exception, and affected his action. In his adaptation 
of ' Lear ' he threw out this scene, though he re- 
tained the description of the cliff, which had really 

1 The Adventurer, No. 122, Jan. 5, 1754. 

2 Illustrations of Shakespeare, vol. ii. p. 273. 

394 



SHAKESPEARE AS DRAMATIST AND MORALIST 

no business in the play, if Gloucester was not supposed 
to leap from it. Here it is, as usual, that Shakespeare 
exhibits his superiority to his critics, who did not study 
the personages he portrayed with the insight he applied 
to their conception. Gloucester's character and acts 
are consistent throughout. He is an easy victim to 
superstition. His own son speaks of him as credulous 
by nature. He expresses faith in the effects of plane- 
tary influence at which the evil-minded but far abler 
Edmund scoffs. There is nothing which a man of this 
temperament cannot be made to believe against the 
evidence of his senses, even under ordinary conditions. 
But the conditions here are not ordinary. Gloucester 
has been passing through terrible experiences, which 
have already unsettled the powers both of mind and 
body. All that has happened tends to overthrow the 
natural conclusions of the judgment. That he could 
be persuaded that he had not only fallen, but that he 
had been tempted by a fiend to throw himself headlong 
from the summit of the cliff is exactly in line with his 
whole previous conduct. Shakespeare saw it and acted 
upon it. Warton, not having the ability to see it, cen- 
sured him for a course he failed to comprehend. 

This concludes all that need be said of Shakespeare's 
art, so far as the criticisms of it are concerned which 
have been based upon purely intellectual considera- 
tions. But there remains another point about which 
controversy gathered constantly during the century 
and more that followed the Restoration. Even to this 
day we find it occasionally renewed. It is the attack 
which has been made upon his course from the side 

395 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

of morality. Its character must not be misappre- 
hended. It has nothing to do with the presence in 
his pages of occasional coarseness and vulgarity. It is 
his frequent violation of what is termed poetic justice 
which here comes under review. It is his practice of 

v^eaving the guilty unpunished and the innocent unre- 
warded that has provoked some of the severest criticism 
to which he has been subjected as a moral teacher. 
This is wholly independent of the question whether 
the play itself is of a virtuous or vicious tendency. It 
concerns itself entirely with the fate which in the 
catastrophe is assigned to the various personages of the 
drama. But before entering upon the discussion of 
the question itself, it is desirable to prepare the way 
for it by a consideration of both the specific and the 
general attitude which Shakespeare exhibits towards 
morality. 

It is to be said at the outset that as Shakespeare's 
art was more free from offences against dramatic pro- 
priety than that of his contemporaries or of his suc- 
cessors, so it is of a distinctly higher moral tone. The 
continued increase of his fame is in no small measure 
due to this fact. The unchanging deference which is 
paid to the pure in literature is a tribute of itself to 
the permanent hold which high things have over the 
human heart. Shakespeare is pre-eminently a moral 

v/poet. This is stated with the full consciousness that 
there are passages in his writings — and by no means 
so infrequent as some think — which might fairly seem 
to convey an exactly opposite impression. I am not 
referring to the familiar fact of terms in lapse of time 

396 



SHAKESPEARE AS DRAMATIST AND MORALIST 

becoming coarse by association, though they have no 
essential coarseness in themselves ; nor again to the use 
of direct and plain expressions where modern nicety 
demands euphemistic ones. Both these occur; but 
they are mere accidents of convention: in the domain 
of morals they deserve no attention. The fault is of 
an altogether different nature. It is the occurrence in 
his writings of gross and licentious allusions, which 
would be reckoned as such, no matter in what age they 
appeared, or in what disguise of language they were 
clothed. 

In this he acted no differently from his fellow- 
dramatists. Though Shakespeare was a writer for all 
time, as was long ago said by the greatest of his rivals, 
he was likewise, in some particulars, the child of his age. 
He reflected occasionally the worst characteristics of 
his period, as more often he embodied the deepest con- 
victions and loftiest aspirations of the race. He was 
influenced by the same moral or immoral forces which 
were operating upon all his contemporaries. In any 
consideration of the Elizabethan drama it will never do 
to lose sight of the fact that it was then the represen- 
tative national literature. The writers for the stage 
were under the influence of every class in the com- 
munity, from the highest to the lowest. It would be a 
gross error to assume, as was constantly assumed in the 
eighteenth century, that the latter made up the main or 
even a very important element of the audience. That 
matchless poetry which later times have often imitated 
but never equalled; those lofty passages which linger 
in the memory, though the truths they convey may 

397 



1/ 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

have no influence upon the life, — these were never 
written for unappreciative ears ; they were never deliv- 
ered to men who did not acknowledge and act upon 
the highest motives. But while in many respects the 
theatre represented what was noblest and purest in the 
national life and character, it certainly catered at times 
to what was lowest. For the high it was high; for 
the pure it was pure; for the vulgar it was vulgar. 
From this point of view it did not differ essentially 
from the modern newspaper, which puts forward the 
claim, sometimes in express words, more frequently in 
its practice, that within certain limits it must satisfy 
all classes in the community. It is further to be borne 
in mind that while the Elizabethan age was one of 
greatness in many respects, it was also an age of plain- 
•^spokenness which too often assumed the nature of 
coarseness. Delicacy in many modern senses of the 
word seems to have been a thing almost unknown; 
while the squeamishness which with us occasionally 
goes under that garb was something that was not even 
dreamed of then. 

The most ardent admirer of Shakespeare must con- 
cede that he was not wholly free from that tendency 
to pander at times to man's baser nature, which the 
Puritans regarded as the inherent vice of all theatrical 
representation. In him, as in other playwrights of his 
period, there is a certain proportion of licentious utter- 
I ance, introduced apparently for no other purpose than to 
gratify the taste of the vilest of the populace. Atten- 
tion has been called to the fact that he sometimes falls 
below the highest standard of art in consequence of his 

398 



SHAKESPEARE AS DRAMATIST AND MORALIST 

addiction to verbal quibbles. It is in connection 
with these that the matter objectionable on the score 
of impurity is very generally found. It is perhaps in 
accordance with the everlasting proprieties that the 
passages which are most offensive morally should be 
also the most execrable intellectually. Happily many 
of the vilest of these plays upon words escape, as a 
general rule, the notice of the ordinary reader. This 
is partly because of the inexpressible wretchedness of 
the verbal quibbles in which their meaning is wrapped 
up, and partly for the reason that changes which have 
taken place in the signification of words hide now the 
obscenity which was at the time plainly apparent. 
Most of us in reading them pass over them without the 
slightest suspicion of the nature of the ground upon 
which we are treading. Even great commentators have 
revealed both their innocence and their ignorance in 
laborious efforts they have put forth to explain the 
passages in which they are found. The indecency 
which lurks in them is couched in allusions which time 
has made so impenetrably obscure that the words give 
as little shock to the sense as if they were uttered in 
an unknown tongue. 

Still this stain upon Shakespeare's writings exists, 
even though it does not go very deep. All students of 
the dramatist will concede it. But while this can be 
granted, it is easy to draw utterly mistaken conclusions 
from the admission. The passages which are objection- 
able on the score of their licentiousness are, in the first 
place, almost invariably of a low intellectual grade. 
There is still another gratifying tribute which morality 

399 



SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST 

is enabled to pay to the saving grace of stupidity. 
These passages have rarely any close connection with 
the proper business of the play. They are not essential 
to carrying forward its action. Hence they can usually 
be dropped in representation without attracting the 
slightest attention whatever. Their absence is not felt 
as an injury either to the development of the plot or 
to its comprehension. There is no dramatist who lends 
himself more easily than Shakespeare to expurgation, 
so far as expurgation is required, and who loses so little 
by it. In many of the plays of Fletcher, for instance, 
the indelicacy is ingrained into the very texture of the 
plot. It cannot be removed without utterly destroying 
the whole piece. This is far more visibly the fact in 
the comedy of the Restoration, often blazing with wit, 
brilliant with repartee, and alive with startling situa- 
tions, but so shamelessly vicious in its whole nature 
that even out of detached scenes the modern stage can 
scarcely put together a production that would be toler- 
ated by a modern audience. In Shakespeare, on the 
'\) other hand, these offensive passages do not touch the 
inner life of the story. They are almost invariably 
excrescences upon the surface of the piece. The re- 
moval of them detracts nothing from its intellectual 
completeness, while it contributes to its moral perfection. 
In Shakespeare, accordingly, there are coarse words 
which can be replaced by others equally expressive but 
hot offensive. There are impure allusions which can 
be lopped away without injuring the context; and once 
gone they are never missed. These are the limits of 
his trespass. Against them can be placed, first, one 

400 



BIBLIOaRAPHY 

The following pages contain a bibliography of the works, 
referred to in this volume, which appeared from the Eesto- 
ration to the end of the eighteenth century. For obvious 
reasons they have been put down in chronological order ; 
but they are in the index with a reference to the page on 
which they are found here. In every instance they appear 
under the date of the year in which they were first pub- 
lished; but the full title is given only of the particular 
edition which has been consulted in the preparation of this 
volume. The prefix of an asterisk to a title signifies that 
the work has not been seen : that any account given of it, 
or of its contents, has been taken from others. 

1663. 

The Adventures of Five Hours. A Tragi-Comedy. Feb. 21" 1662. Im- 
primatur John Berkenhead. London, Printed for Henry Herring- 
mann. 1663. 

1665. 

Four New Plays, viz. : The Surprisal, The Committee, Comedies. The 
Indian-Queen, The Vestal- Virgin, Tragedies. As they were acted 
by his Majesties Servants at the Theatre Royal. Written by the 
Honourable Sir Robert Howard. Imprimatur, March 7. 166f Roger 
L'Estrange. London, Printed for Henry Herringmann. 1665. 

1667. 
Love Tricks : or, The School of Complements ; as it is now acted by his 
Royal Highnesse the Duke of York's Servants at the Theatre in Little 
Lincolns-Inne Fields. By J. S. Licens'd May 24. 1667. Roger 
L'Estrange. London, Sold by Thomas Dring Junior. 1667. 
The Indian Emperour, or, the Conquest of Mexico by the Spaniards. 
Being the sequel of the Indian Queen. By John Dryden, Esq; Lon- 
don, Printed for Henry Herringman. 1694. 
419 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 



1668. 



The Great Favorite, or, the Duke of Lerma. A Tragedy. As it was 
acted at the Theatre-Royal by His Majesty's Servants. Written by 
the Honourable Sir Robert Howard. London, Printed for Henry 
Herringman. 1692. 
in Five New Plays. 1692. 

Secret-Love, or the Maiden-Queen : As it is acted by his Majesties Ser- 
vants at the Theater-Royal. Written by John Dryden, Esq ; London, 
Printed for Henry Herringman, 1669. 

The Sullen Lovers : or. The Irapertinents. A Comedy acted by his 
Highness the Duke of York's Servants. Written by Tho. Shadwell. 
London, Printed for Henry Herringman. 1670. 

Of Dramatick Poesie, an Essay. By John Dryden Esq : London, Printed 
for Henry Herringman, 1668. 

1669. 

The Wild Gallant : A Comedy. As it is acted by their Majesties Ser- 
vants. Written by John Dryden, Esq ; London, Printed for Henry 
Herringman, 1694. 

1670. 

Ty ran nick Love ; or, the Royal Martyr. A Tragedy. As it is acted by 
his Majestie's Servants at the Theatre Royal. By John Dryden, 
Servant to his Majesty. London, Printed for H. Herringman, 1686. 

The Tempest, or the Enchanted Island. A Comedy. As it is now acted 
at liis Highness the Duke of York's, Theatre. London, Printed for 
Henry Herringman. 1674. 

1671. 

Paradise Regained. A Poem. In IV Books. To which is added Sam- 
son Agonistes. The author John Milton. London, Printed for John 
Starkey. 1671. 

1672. 

The Conquest of Granada by the Spaniards : In two parts. Acted at the 
Theater Royall. Written by John Dryden Servant to his Majesty. 
Printed for Henry Herringman. 1672. 

Almanzor and Almahide, or the Conquest of Granada. The Second Part. 
As it is acted at the Theater-Royal. Written by John Dryden Ser- 
vant to his Majesty. Printed for Henry Herringman. 1672. 

1673. 
The Law against Lovers, pp. 272-329 

in The Works of S' William D'Avenant K' consisting of those which 
were formerly printed, and those which he design'd for the press : 
now published out of the Author's original copies. London : Printed 
for Henry Herringman. 1673. 

420 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

1674. 

Macbeth, a Tragedy: With all the alterations, amendments, additions, 
and new songs. As it is now acted at the Dukes Theatre. London : 
Printed for A. Clark, 1674. 

Monsieur Rapin's Reflections on Aristotle's Treatise of Poesie. Con- 
taining the necessary, rational, and universal rules for epick, dra- 
matick, and the other sorts of poetry. "With reflections on the works 
of the ancient and modern poets, and their faults noted. Made 
English by Mr. Rymer : By whom are added some reflections on 
English poets. 
in Rapin's Critical Works, Vol. ii. London, 1731. pp. 107-241. 

1675. 

The Mock-Tempest: or the Enchanted Castle, Acted at the Theatre 
Royal. Written by T. Duffett. London, Printed for William Cade- 
man, 1675. 

The heading of the play itself is " The New Tempest or the En- 
chanted Castle." 

Theatrum Poetarum, or a Complete Collection of the Poets, especially 
the most eminent of all ages. The antieuts distinguish't from the 
modern in their several alphabets. With some observations and re- 
flections upon many of them, particularly upon those of our own 
nation. Together with a prefatory discourse of the poets and poetry 
in generall. By Edward Phillips. London, Printed for Charles 

Smith, 1675. 

1678. 

The Tragedies of the Last Age, consider'd and examin'd by the practice 
of the ancients, and the common sense of all ages in a Letter to 
Fleetwood Shepheard, Esq : by Thomas Rymer, of Gray's Inn, Es- 
quire. London, Printed for Richard Tonson, 1678. Licensed July 
17, 1677. R. L'Estrange. 

Edgar, or the English Monarch; an heroick Tragedy. By Thomas 
Rymer of Gray's-Inn Esq: Licensed Septemb. 13. 1677. Roger 
L'Estrange. London, Printed for Richard Tonson, 1678. 

AU for Love : or, The World Well Lost. A Tragedy, as it is acted at 
the Theatre-Royal ; and written in imitation of Shakespeare's style. 
By John Dryden, Servant to his Majesty. Li the Savoy : Printed 
for Henry Herringman, 1678. 

The History of Timon of Athens, the Man-Hater. As it is acted at the 
Dukes Theatre. Made into a Play. By Tho. Shadwell. Licensed, 
Feb. 18, 167f, Ro. L'Estrange. London, Printed for Henry Her- 
ringman, 1678. 

1679. 

Troilus and Cressida, or, Truth found too late. A Tragedy as it is acted 
at the Dukes Theatre. To which is prefix'd, A Preface contammg 
421 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

the Grounds of Criticism in Tragedy. Written by John Dryden, 

Servant to his Majesty. London, Printed for Jacob Tonson and Abel 

Swall, 1679. 

1680. 
The History and Fall of Caius Marius. A Tragedy. As it is acted at 

the Theatre Royal. By Thomas Otway. London, Printed for S. 

Flesher, 1680. 
Henry the Sixth, or The Misery of Civil War, as it was acted at the 

Dukes Theatre. Written by Mr. Crown. London, Printed for R. 

Bentley and M. Magnes. 1681. 
Horace's Art of Poetry, 

in Poems by the Earl of Roscommon. To which is added, an Essay 

on Poetry, by the Earl of Mulgrave, now Duke of Buckingham. 

Together with poems by Mr. Richard Duke. London. Printed 

for J. Tonson, 1717. 

1681. 

Henry the Sixth, The First Part. With the Murder of Humphrey Duke 
of Glocester. As it was acted at the Dukes Theatre. Written by 
Mr. Crown. London, Printed for R. Bentley, and M. Magnes. 1681. 

The Spanish Fryar, or. The Double Discovery. Acted at the Duke's 
Theatre. Written by John Dryden, Servant to his Majesty. London, 
Printed for Richard Tonson and Jacob Tonson, 1681. 

The History of King Lear. Acted at the Duke's Theatre. Reviv'd with 
alterations. By N. Tate. London, Printed for E. Flesher, 1681. 

The History of King Richard the Second. Acted at the Theatre Royal, 
under the name of the Sicilian Usurper. With a prefatory Epistle 
in Vindication of the Author. Occasiou'd by the prohibition of this 
play on the Stage. By N. Tate. London, Printed for Richard Ton- 
son and Jacob Tonson. 1681. 

1682. 

The Ingratitude of a Common- Wealth : or, the Fall of Caius Martins 
Coriolanus. As it is acted at the Theatre-Royal. By N. Tate. 
Printed for Joseph Hindmarsh, 1682. 

The Injured Princes, or the Fatal Wager : as it was acted at the Theater- 
Royal, by his Majesties Servants. By Tho. Durfey, Gent. London : 
Printed for R. Bentley and M. Magnes, 1682. 

1683. 
The Duke of Guise. A Tragedy. Acted by their Majesties Servants. 
Written by Mr. Dryden and Mr. Lee. London, Printed for R. Bent- 
ley and J. Tonson. 1687. 

1687. 
Titus Andronicus, or the Rape of Lavinia. Acted at the Theatre Royall. 
Alter'd from Mr. Shakespear's works by Mr. Edw. Ravenscroft. 
422 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Licensed Dec 21, 1686. R. L. S. London, Printed for J. Hindmarsh, 
1687. 
Mixt Essays upon Tragedies, Comedies, Italian Comedies, English Come- 
dies, and Opera's To his Grace, the Duke of Buckingham. Written 
originally in French by the Sieur de Saint Evvremont, Licensed Rog. 
L'Estrange. London : Printed for Timothy Goodwin, 1687. 

1690. 

Don Sebastian, King of Portugal : A Tragedy acted at the Theatre Royal. 
Written by Mr. Dryden. London : Printed for Jo. Hindmarsh. 
1692. 

1692. 

The Gentleman's Journal : or the Monthly Miscellany. By way of letter 
to a Gentleman in the Country. Consisting of news, history, philo- 
sophy, poetry, musick, translations, &c. London. 1692-93. 

Cleomeues, the Spartan Heroe. A Tragedy, as it is acted at the Theatre 
Royal. Written by Mr. Dryden. To which is prefixt the Life of 
Cleoraenes. London, Printed for Jacob Tonsou, 1692. 

The Tragedies of the Last Age, Consider'd and Examiu'd by the practice 
of the ancients, and the common sense of all ages in a Letter to Fleet- 
wood Shepheard, Esq ; By Mr. Rymer Servant to their Majesties. 
Part I. The second Edition. Printed and sold by Richard Baldwin. 
1692. 

1693. 

A Short View of Tragedy ; it's original, excellency, and corruption. 
With some reflections on Shakespear, and other practitioners for the 
stage. B_y Mr. Rymer, Servant to their Majesties. Printed and sold 
by Richard Baldwin. 1693. 

The Impartial Critick : or some observations upon a late book entituled, 
A Short View of Tragedy, written by Mr. Rymer, and dedicated to 
the Right Honourable Charles Earl of Dorset, &c. By Mr. Dennis. 
London : Printed for R. Taylor. 1693. 

1694. 

Some Reflections on Mr Rymer's Short View of Tragedy, and an At- 
tempt at a Vindication of Shakespear, in an Essay directed to John 
Dryden, Esq. 

in Miscellaneous Letters and Essays, on several Subjects. Philosophical, 
Moral, Historical, Critical, Amorous, &c. in Prose and Verse. Di- 
rected to John Dryden, Esq ; The Honourable Geo. GranviU, Esq : 
Walter Moile, Esq : Mr. Dennis, Mr. Congreve, and other Eminent 
Men of the Age. By several Gentlemen and Ladies. London : 
Printed for Benjamin Bragg, 1694. 

The Epistle dedicatory to the Honourable Sir John Trenchard is 
signed by Charles Gildon. 

423 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 



1695. 



Love for Love : A Comedy. Acted at the Theatre iu Little Lincolns- 
Inn Fields, by his Majestys Servants. Written by Mr. Congreve. 
London: Printed for Jacob Tonson. 1695. 

1696. 

* The Mock Marriage. A Comedy. By Thomas Scott. Loudon: 1696. 
Letters upon Several Occasions : Written by and between Mr. Dryden, 

Mr. Wycherly, Mr. , Mr. Congreve and Mr. Dennis. 

in The Works of John Dennis. Vol. ii. London, 1718. pp. 480-543. 
Oroonoko : A Tragedy. As it is acted at the Theatre-Royal, by his 

Majestys Servants. Written by Tho. Southerne. London : Printed 

for H. Play ford, B. Tooke, and A. Bellesworth. 1699. 

1697. 

A Plot, and no Plot. A Comedy, as it is acted at the Theatre-Royal in 
Drury-Lane. Written by Mr. Dennis. London, Printed for R. 
Parker, P. Buck, and R. Wellington. [1697.] 

1698. 

Sauny the Scott : or, the Taming of the Shrew. A Comedy. As it is 
now acted at the Theatre- Royal. Written by J. Lacey, Servant to 
his Majesty. And never before printed. London : Printed and sold 
by E. Whitlock. 1698. 

Phaeton : or, The Fatal Divorce. A Tragedy. As it is acted at the 
Theatre Royal. In imitation of the ancients. With some reflections 
on a book call'd, A Short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of 
the English Stage. London, Printed for Abel Roper. 1698. [By 
Charles Gildon.] 

1700. 

[King Richard iii. as altered by Cibber.] King Richard the Third, a 
Tragedy, by Shakespeare. As performed at the Theatre-Royal, 
Drury-Lane, regulated from the Pronipt-Book, with permission of the 
Managers, by Mr. Hopkins, prompter. An introduction, and notes 
critical and illustrative are added by the Authors of the Dramatic 
Censor. The Third edition. London : Printed for John Bell. 1779. 
A note in this edition to the heading of the play says : " This Trag- 
edy being admirably altered from the original, by that excellent judge 
and ornament of the stage, Collet/ Cibber, we shall have the fewer 
observations to make upon it." On this Genest in his copy writes 
the following comment : " This note shows the editor a bigger fool 
than Cibber himself." 

Measure for Measure, or Beauty the best advocate. As it is acted at the 
Theatre in Lincolns-Inn-Fields. Written originally by Mr. Shake- 
424 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

spear : And now very much Alter'd ; with additions of several Enter- 
tainments of Music. London : Printed for D. Brown and R. Parker. 
1700. [By Charles Gildon.] 
Iphigenia. A Tragedy, acted at the theatre in Little Liucolas-Inn-Fields. 
By Mr. Dennis. London. Printed for Richard Parker. 1700. 

1701. 

The Ambitious Stepmother. A Tragedy. As 'twas acted at the New 

Theatre in Little-Lincolns-Inn Fields. By his Majestys Servants. 

By N. Rowe, Esq ;. London, Printed for Peter Buck. 1701. 
The Jew of Venice. A Comedy. As it is acted at the theatre in Little- 

Lincoln-Inn-Fields, by his Majesty's Servants. Loudon, Printed for 

Ber. Lintott, 1701. [By Richard Granville, Lord Lansdowne.] 
Love's Victim : or. The Queen of Wales. A Tragedy. As it was acted 

at the Theatre in Liucolus-Inn-Fiekls. By his Majestys Servants. 

London, Printed for Richard Parker, and George Strahan. 1701. 

[By Charles Gildon.] 

1702. 

The Comical Gallant : or the Amours of Sir John Falstaffe. A Comedy. 
As it is acted at the Theatre-Royal in Drury-laue. By his Majesty's 
Servants. By Mr. Dennis. To which is added, A Large Account of 
the Taste in Poetry, and the Causes of the degeneracy of it. Lon- 
don, Printed and sold by A. Baldwin. 1702. 

A Discourse upon Comedy, in reference to the English Stage. In a 
letter to a Friend, 
in Farquhar's Works, tenth edition, 1772. Vol. I. pp. 69-92. 

1703. 

Love's Contrivance : or, Le Me'decin malgr^ Lui. A Comedy. As it is 
acted at the Theatre Royal in Drury-Lane, 

in vol ii of The Dramatic Works of the Celebrated Mrs. Centlivre, 
with a new account of her life. Complete in three volumes. 
London: John Pearson. 1872. 

1704. 

The Grounds of Criticism in Poetry, contain'd in some new discoveries 
never made before, requisite for the Writing and Judging of Poems 
surely. Being a preliminary to a larger work design'd to be pub- 
lish'd in folio, and entitul'd, A Criticism upon our most Celebrated 
Poets deceas'd. By Mr. Dennis. London, Printed for Geo. Strahan 
and Bernard Lintott. 1704. 

1708. 

Roscius Anglicanus, or, An Historical Review of the Stage from 1660 to 
1706. By John Downes. A fac-simile reprint of the rare original 
of 1708. With an historical preface by Joseph Knight. London: 
Jarvis & Son. 1886. 

425 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

1709. 

The Works of Mr. William Shakespear ; in six volumes. Adorn'd with 
cuts. Revis'd and Corrected, with an account of the Life and Writ- 
ings of the author. By N. Rowe Esq ; London : Printed for Jacob 
Tonson. 1709. 

1710. 

The Works of Mr. William Shakespear. Volume the Seventh. Con- 
taining, Venus & Adonis Tarquin «& Lucrece and His Miscellany- 
Poems. With Critical Remarks on his Plays, &c. to which is pre- 
fix'd an Essay on the Art, Rise and Progress of the Stage in Greece, 
Rome and England. London : Printed for E. Curll and E. Sanger. 
1710. 

Elf rid : or the Fair Inconstant. A Tragedy : as it is acted at the Theatre 
Royal, by her Majesty's Servants. To which is added the Walking 
Statue : or. The Devil in the Wine-Cellar. A Farce. Written by 
Mr. Hill, 1710. London, Printed for Bernard Lintott and Egbert 
Sanger. 

1712. 

The Distrest Mother. A Tragedy. As it is acted at the Theatre-Royal 
in Drury-Lane. By her Majesty's Servants. Written by Mr. Phil- 
ips. London : Printed for S. Buckley and J. Tonson, 1712. 

An Essay on the Genius and Writings of Shakespear : with some letters 
of criticism to the Spectator. By Mr. Dennis. London : Printed for 
Bernard Lintott. 1712. 

The Perplex'd Lovers. A Comedy. As it is acted at the Theatre-Royal 
in Drury Lane. By her Majesty's Servants. Written by Mrs. Su- 
sanna Cent-livre. London : Printed for Owen Lloyd, William Lewis, 
John Graves, and Tho. Harbin. 1712. 

1713. 

Cato. A Tragedy. As it is acted at the Theatre-Royal in Drury-Lane, 
By her Majesty's Servants. By Mr. Addison. London : Printed for 
J. Tonson. 1713. 

Remarks upon Cato, a Tragedy. By Mr. Dennis. London : Printed for 
B. Lintott, 1713. 

1714. 

The Tragedy of Jane Shore. Written in imitation of Shakespear's style. 
By N. Rowe, Esq;. London: Printed for Bernard Lintott. [1714.] 

1718. 

The Complete Art of Poetry. In Six parts. [In two volumes.] By 
Charles Gildon, Gent. London : Printed for Charles Rivington. 
1718. 

426 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

The Non-Juror. A Comedy. As it is acted at the Theatre-Royal, by 
his Majesty's Servants. Written by Mr. Gibber. London : Printed 
forB. Lintot. 1718. 

1720. 

The Invader of his Country : or, The Fatal Resentment. A Tragedy. 
As it is acted at the Theatre-Royal in Drury-Lane. By his Majesty's 
Servants. By Mr. Dennis. London : Printed for J. Pemberton and 
J. Watts. 1720. 

1731. 

The London Merchant : or, the History of George Barnwell. As it is 
acted at the Theatre-Royal in Drury-Lane. By his Majesty's Ser- 
vants. By Mr. Lillo. London : Printed for J. Gray. 1731. 

Considerations on the Stage, and on the Advantages which arise to a 
Nation from the Encouragement of Arts. London ; Printed in the 
year 1731. A supplement — pp. 45-74 — to 

The Triumphs of Love and Honour, a play, as it is acted by his Majes- 
ty's Servants, at the Theatre-Royal in Drury Lane. To which are 
added — (see above.) By Mr. Cooke. London, Printed for J. 
Roberts. 

1735. 

Junius Brutus, a Tragedy. As it is acted at the Theatre-Royal in Drury- 
Lane, by his Majesty's Servants. By Mr. William Duncombe. Lon- 
don, Printed ; and sold by J. Roberts. 1 735. 

1736. 

Some Remarks on the Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, written 
by Mr. William Shakespeare. London : Printed for W. Wilkins. 
1736. 

1737. 

The Historical Register, For the year 1736. As it is acted at the New 
Theatre in the Hay-Market. To which is added a very Merry Trag- 
edy, called Eurydice Hi.ss'd, or, A Word to the Wise. Both written 
by the Author of Pasquin. To these are prefixed a long dedication 
to the Publick, and a Preface to that Dedication. London, Printed ; 
and sold by J. Roberts. [1737] [By Henry Fielding.] 

1740. 

Elmerick : or, Justice Triumphant. A Tragedy. As it is acted at the 
Theatre Royal in Drury-Lane. By Mr. Lillo. London : Printed for 
John Gray. 1740. 

427 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 



1745. 



Papal Tyranny in the Reign of King John. A Tragedy. As it is acted 
at the Theatre-Royal in Coveut-Garden. By his Majesty's Servants. 
By Colley Gibber, Esq ; London : Printed for J. Watts. 1745. 

Le Theatre Anglois. A Londres. 1745-1748. Tomes I-VIII. 

[Par Pierre Antoine de la Place.] 

1746. 

Critical Observations on Shakespeare. By John Upton Prebendary of 
Rochester. London : Printed for G. Hawkins. 1 746. 

1747. 

The Roman and English Comedy Consider'd and Compar'd. With Re- 
marks on the Suspicious Husband. And an Examen into the merit 
of the present Comic Actors. By S. Foote, Esq : London : Printed 
for T.Waller. 1747. 

1749. 

Q. Horatii Flacci Epistolae ad Pisones, et Augustum : With an English 
commentary and notes : to which are added critical dissertations, ^j 
the Reverend Mr. Hard. In three volumes. The fourth edition, cor- 
rected and enlarged. London, Printed for A. Millar. 1766. 

1752. 

Eugenia: a Tragedy. As it is acted at the Theatre Royal, in Drury- 
Lane, By his Majesty's Servants. London : Printed for A. Millar. 
1752. [by Philip Francis.] 

Miscellaneous Observations on the Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Den- 
mark. With a preface containing some general remarks on the 
Writings of Shakespeare. London : Printed for W. Clarke. 1752. 

Elfrida, a Dramatic Poem, written on the model of the Antient Greek 
Tragedy. By Mr. Mason. Loudon, Printed for J and P. Knapton. 
1752. 

1753. 

Boadicia. A Tragedy. As it is acted at the Theatre Royal in Drury- 

Lane. By Mr. Glover. London : Printed for R and J. Dodsley and 

M. Cooper. 1753. 
The Gamester. A Tragedy. As it is acted at the Theatre-Royal in 

Drury-Lane. London : Printed for R. Francklin. 1753. 
The Rehearsal : or Bays in Petticoats. A Comedy in two acts. As it is 

performed at the Theatre Royal in Drury Lane. Written by Mrs. 

Clive. The music composed by Dr. Boyce. London : Printed for 

R. Dodsley. 1753. [First acted March 15, 1750.] 
428 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Shakespear Illustrated : or the Novels and Histories on which the Plays 
of Shakespear are founded, collected and translated from the origi- 
nal authors. With critical remarks. In two volumes. By the author 
of the Female Quixote. London : Printed for A. Millar, 1753. 

1754. 

Philoclea. A Tragedy. As it is acted at the Theatre Royal in Covent 
Garden. Written by K'Namara Morgan, a Student of the Middle 
Tenjple. London: Printed for K. and J. Dodsley, 1754. 

Shakespear Illustrated. [Title-page same as in volumes of 1753.] The 
third and last volume. 1754. 

1756, 

Athelstan. A Tragedy. As it is acted at the Theatre Royal in Drury- 
Lane. London, Printed for Lockyer Davis and Charles Reymers, 
1756. [By John Brown.] 

1757. 

Douglas: a Tragedy. As it is acted at the Theatre-Royal in Covent 
Garden. London : Printed for A. Millar. 1757. [By John Home.] 

1758. 

Agis : a Tragedy. As it is acted at the Theatre-Royal in Drury-Lane. 

London: Printed for A. Millar. 1758. [By John Home.] 
Cleone. A Tragedy. As it is acted at the Theatre Royal in Covent 

Garden. Written by R. Dodsley. London: Printed for R.and J. 

Dodsley, 1758. 

1759. 

Cymbeline. A Tragedy, altered from Shakespeare. As it is performed 
at the Theatre-Royal in Covent-Garden. By William Hawkins, M. A. 
late fellow of Pembroke College, and Professor of Poetry in the 
University of Oxford. London : Printed for James Rivington and 
James Fletcher, 1759. 

Caractacus, a Dramatic Poem : Written on the model of the Antient Greek 
Tragedy. By the author of Elfrida. London : Printed for J. Knap- 
ton and R. and J. Dodsley. 1759. [By William Mason.] 

Oronooko : a Tragedy. As it is now acted at the Theatre-Royal in Drury- 
Lane. By his Majesty's Servants. By Thomas Southern. With 
alterations. London: Printed for C. Bathurst, 1759. [Alterations 
by John Hawkesworth.] 

1760. 

Dialogues of the Dead. The fifth edition, Corrected. London : Printed 
for J. Murray. 1768. [By George, Lord Lyttelton.] 
429 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

1762. 

Elements of Criticism. The Eighth Edition. With the author's last cor- 
rections and additions. [In two volumes.] London: Printed for 
Vernor and Hood. 1805. [By Henry Home, Lord Kames.] 

* Remarks on the Beauties of Poetry. By Daniel Webb, Esq.; London. 
Dodsley. 1762. 

1763. 

Philaster, a Tragedy. Written by Beaumont and Fletcher. With altera- 
tions. As it is acted at the Theatre-Royal in Drury-Lane. London : 
Printed for J. and R. Touson, 1 763. 
[Alterations by George Colman.] 

1764. 

The Companion to the Play-House : or, An historical account of all the 
dramatic writers (and their works) that have appeared in Great 
Britain and Ireland, from the Commencement of our theatrical ex- 
hibitions, down to the present year, 1764. Composed in the form of 
a dictionary, for the more readily turning to any particular author, or 
performance. In two volumes. London : Printed for T. Becket, 
P. A. Dehondt, C. Henderson, and T. Davies. 1764. [By David E. 
Baker.] 

1765. 

The Castle of Otranto, a Gothic Story. Translated by William Marshall, 
Gent. From the original Italian of Onuphrio Muralto, Canon of 
the Church of St. Nicholas at Otranto. The sixth edition. Parma. 
Printed by Rodoni, for J. Edwards, Bookseller of London. 1791. 
[By Horace Walpole.] 

The Comedies of Terence, Translated into Familiar Blank Verse. By 
George Colman. The Second Edition revised and corrected. In 
two volumes. Printed for T. Becket, P. A. De Hondt, and R. Bald- 
win. 1768. 

1766. 

The Earl of Warwick, a Tragedy, as it is performed at the Theatre Royal 
in Drury Lane. London : printed for T. Davies, R. Baldwin, and 
W. Griffin. 1766. [By Thomas Francklin.] 

1768. 

The History of King Lear. As it is performed at the Theatre Royal in 
Covent Garden. London. Printed for R. Baldwin & T. Becket. 
1768. [Lear, as altered by George Colman.] 

1769. 

The Sister: a Comedy. By Mrs. Charlotte Lennox. London, Printed 
for J. Dodsley and T. Davies. 1 769. 
430 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

1771. 
Timon of Athens, altered from Shakespear. A Tragedy. As it is acted 
at the Theatre-Roval in Drury Lane. London : printed for the pro- 
prietors of Shakespear's works. 1771. [By Richard Cumberland.] 

1773. 

She Stoops to Conquer : or, The Mistakes of a Night. A Comedy. As 
it is acted at the Theatre-Royal in Covent-Garden. Written by 
Doctor Goldsmith. London : Printed for F. Newbery. 1773. 

1774. 

Cursory Remarks on Tragedy, on Shakespear, and on certain French and 
Italian Poets, principally Tragedians. London : prmted for W. Owen. 
1774. [By Edward Taylor.] 

Analysis of Shakespeare's Characters. A Philosophical Analysis and 
Illustration of some of Shakespeare's Remarkable Characters. By 
William Richardson, Esq. Professor of Humanity m the University 
of Glas"-ow The second edition, corrected. London : Printed for 
J. Murray ; and W. Creech at Edinburgh. 1775. [Contains tbe 
characters of Macbeth, Hamlet, Jaques, and Imogen.] 

1775. 

*The Correspondents. An Original Novel in a series of Letters. Lon- 
don, 1775. „ , . ^ 

The Rivals, a Comedy. As it is acted at the Theatre-Royal in Covent- 
Garden. London: Printed for John Wilkie. 1775. [By R. B. 
Sheridan.] 

*The Elements of Dramatic Criticism; containing an analysis ot the 
stage, &c. By William Cooke, Esq ; of the Middle Temple. Lon- 
don, Kearsly, 1775. 

1777. 

Discours sur Shakespeare et sur Monsieur de Voltaire par Joseph Ba- 
retti, se'cretaire pour la correspondence e'trangere de I'Academie 
Royale Britannique. Londres, chez J. Nourse, libraire du Roi, et a 
Paris, chez Duraud neveu. 1777. 

Biographia Literaria ; or a Biographical History of Literature : Contain- 
ing the Lives of English, Scottish, and Irish Authors, from the dawn 
of letters in these Kingdoms to the present time, chronologically and 
classically arranged. By John Berkenhout, M. D. Volume L From 
the beginning of' the fifth to the end of the sixteenth century. Lon- 
don : Printed for J. Dodsley. 1777. [Volume I was the only one 

published.] . 

* A new Translation of the Heauton-timorumenos and Adelphi of Terence : 
in Prose. Together with a preface, containing a free enquiry mto 
431 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Mr. Colman's arguments for translating the comedies of that author 
into blank verse. By a member of the University of Oxford. Lon- 
don. Dodsley. 1777. 
An Essay on the. Dramatic Character of Sir John Falstaff. London : 
Printed for T. Davies. 1777. [By Maurice Morganu.] 

1779. 

The Law of Lombardy ; a Tragedy : As it is performed at the Theatre- 
Royal in Drury-Lane. Written by Robert Jephson, Esq. author of 
Bragauza. London. Printed for T. Evans. 1779. 

1780. 
Zoraida: a Tragedy. As it is acted at the Theatre-Royal in Drury-Lane. 
To which is added a postscript, containing observations on Tragedy. 
London: Printed for G. Kearsly. 1780. [By William Hodson.] 

1781. 

* Nathan the Wise. A Philosophic Drama. From the German of G. E. 
Lessing, late Librarian to the Duke of Brunswick. Translated into 
English by R. E. Raspe. London, Fielding. 1781. 

1782. 

Biographia Dramatica, or a Companion to the Playhouse, &c. By David 
Erskiue Baker, Esq. A new edition : carefully corrected, greatly 
enlarged ; and continued from 1764 to 1782. [In two volumes.] Dub- 
lin, 1782. [An enlarged edition of the Companion to the Playhouse, 
1764.] 

178.3. 

Dissertations Moral and Critical. On Memory and Imagination. On 
Dreaming. The Theory of Language. On Fable and Romance. On 
the Attachments of Kindred. Illustrations of Sublimity. By James 
Beattie, LL. D. Professor of Moral Philosophy and Logick in the 
Marischal College and University of Aberdeen ; and Member of the 
Zealand Society of Arts and Sciences. London : Printed for W. 
Strahan and T. Cadell ; and W. Creech at Edinburgh. 1 783. 

Q. Horatii Flacci Epistola ad Pisones, de Arte Poetica. The Art of 
Poetry : an Epistle to the Pisos. Translated from Horace. With 
notes. By George Colman. London : Printed for T. Cadell. 1783. 

The Mysterious Husband. A Tragedy in Five Acts. As it is acted at 
the Theatre-Royal, Covent-Garden. By Richard Cumberland, Esq. 
London ; Printed for C. Dilly and J. Walter. 1783. 

Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles-Lettres. By Hugh Blair, D. D. One of 
the ministers of the High Church, and professor of rhetoric and belles 
lettres in the University of Edinburgh. In three volumes. Dublin. 
1783. 

432 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 



1784. 



*Plavs of Three Acts ; written for a Private Tlieatre. By William Hay- 
ley, Esq. Loudou. Cadell. 1784. [Among the comedies is The 
Two Connoisseurs.] 

Dramatic Miscellanies : consisting of critical observations on several plays 
of Shakspeare : with a review of his principal characters, and those of 
various eminent writers, as represented by Mr. Garrick, and the cele- 
brated comedians. With Anecdotes of Dramatic Poets, Actors, &c. 
By Thomas Davies, Author of Memoirs of the Life of David Garrick, 
Esq. In three volumes. Loudon. Printed for the Author. 1784. 

Essays on Shakespeare's Dramatic Characters of Richard the Third, 
King Lear, and Timon of Athens. To which are added, an Essay 
on the Faults of Shakespeare ; and additional observations on the 
Character of Hamlet. The second edition : By Mr. Richardson, 
Professor of Humanity in the University of Glasgow. Londou : 
Printed for J. Murray. 1786. 

1785. 

The Mine : a Dramatic Poem. The second edition. To which are added, 
Two historic odes. By John Sargent, Esquire. Loudon : Printed 
for T. Cadell. 1788. 

1786. 

*The Disbanded Officer ; or, The Baroness of Bruchsal : a Comedy. As 
performed at the Theatre-Royal in the Haymarket. Cadell. Lou- 
don. 1786. 

The New Foundling Hospital for Wit. Being a collection of Fugitive 
Pieces, in Prose and Verse, not in any other Collectiou. With sev- 
eral pieces never before published. A new edition, corrected and 
considerably enlarged. In six volumes. London : Printed for J. 
Debrett. 1786. [Edited by J. Almon. This is the second edition.] 



1789. 

Essays by W. Belsham. Essays Philosophical and Moral, Historical and 
Literary. By W. Belsham. In Two Volumes. London : Printed 
for G. G- and J. Robinson. 1 799. 



1790. 

Memoirs of His own Life, by Tate Wilkinson, Patentee of the Theatres- 
y Royal, York and Hull. In four volumes. York : Printed for the 
Author. Anno 1790. 

28 433 



^^ 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 



1792. 



Columbus : or, A World Discovered. An Historical Play. As it is per- 
formed at the Theatre-Royal, Covent-Garden. By Thomas Morton, 
of the honourable society of Lincoln's-Inn. London : Printed for 
W. Miller. 1792. 

1832. 

Some Account of the English Stage from the Restoration in 1660 to 1830. 
In ten volumes. Bath: 1832. 
[By John Genest.] 

1838. 

The Correspondence of Sir Thomas Hanmer, Bart. Speaker of the House 
of Commons. With a memoir of his life. To which are added other 
Relicks of a Gentleman's Family. Edited by Sir Henry Bunbury, 
Bart. London : Edward Moxon. 1838. 



434 



INDEX 



INDEX 

In this index, for the convenience of readers, the dates of 
birth and death of most of the authors mentioned have been 
given. When there is any doubt in the case of the English 
ones, I have followed the authority of the Dictionary of 
National Biography. 



Addison, Joseph [1672-1719], 158, 
190, 272, 274; his Cato, 59, 184, 
226, 426 ; on bloodshed in stage 
representation, 191, 192, 202; on 
poetic justice, 406-410; on ryra- 
ing plays, 217 ; on tragi-comedy, 
136, 137. 

Adventures of Five Hours, by 
Sir Samuel Tuke, 263, 419. 

^SCHYLUS, 285, 346. 

Agis, Home's, 349, 429. 

Alcestis, Euripides', 143. 

Alchemist, Jonson's, 33, 

All for Love, Dryden's, 70, 95, 
216, 421 ; account of, 97-99. 

Alteration of Shakespeare's 
Plays, to produce a new play, 
303-306 ; to introduce spectacu- 
lar entertainments, 306-308 ; to 
produce a happy ending, 308 ; to 
introduce love-scenes, 309-313 ; 
hostility to, 31.3-318. 

Ambitious Stepmother, Rowe's, 
371, 403, 425. 

Analysis of Shakespeare's 
Characters, Richardson's, 152, 
431. 

Antigone, Sophocles', 204. 

Apollonius Rhodius, 233. 

Apology for Poetry, Sidney's, 
20, 149. 

Aristophanes, 4, 111. 



Aristotle, 226, 235, 247, 249, 282, 
365, 407 ; his connection with the 
doctrine of the unities, 16, 17, 
20, 49, 250. 

Arne, Thomas Augustus [1710- 
1778], 252. 

Athalie, Racine's, 243, 251. 

Athelstan, Brown's, 66, 193, 429. 

Bacon, Francis [1561-1626], 340 ; 

on love in stage-plays, 115. 
Baretti, Giuseppe Marc' Antonio, 

[1719-1789], 64,431. 
Barry, Lodowick, 38. 
Bartholomew Fair, Jonson's, 

180. 
Beattie, James [1735-1803], 64, 

432. 
Beaumont, Francis [1584-1616], 

34, 35. 
Beaumont and Fletcher, plays 

of, 2, 174, 230, 265; Rymer on, 

234, 235, 277, 281, 402. 
Belsham, William [1752-1827], 65, 

433. 
Bentley, Richard [1708-1782], 

208. 
Berenice, Racine's, 80. 
Berkenhout, John [17301-1791], 

62, 66, 74, 431. 
Betterton, Thomas [1635 ?-1710], 

302, 377. 



437 



INDEX 



BiOGRAPHiA Dramatica, 166 n, 

169 n, 319 n, 432. 
Blackstone, Sir William [1723- 

1780], 388. 
BtAiR, Hugh [1718-1800], 64, 359, 

432 ; on Shakespeare, 348. 
Blank Verse, in comedy, 211, 

212; in tragedy, 211, 214-216, 

217. 
BoADEN, James [1762-1839], 164, 

165. 
BoADiciA, Glover's, 428 ; account 

of, 200. 
B o I L E A u-D ESPREAUX, Nicolas 

[1636-1711], 157,408. 
BoLiNGBKOKE, Henry St. John, Vis- 
count [1678-1751], 43, 131; on 

English tragedy, 345. 
Booth, Barton [1681-1733], 377, 
Booth, Edwin [1833-1893], 320. 
BoswELL, James [1740-1795], 1, 

366. 
Brome, Richard [d. 1652], 34, 40. 
Brown, John [1715-1766], his 

tragedy of Athelstan, 66, 193, 

429. 
Browning, Robert [1812-1889], 

observes dramatic unities, 15. 
Brumoy, Pierre [1688-1742], 192. 
Brutus, Voltaire's, 245. 
Buckingham, George Villiers, 

Duke of [1628-1687], 330. 
Buckinghamshire, John Sheffield, 

Duke of [1648-1721], alteration 

of Julius Caesar, 310; Essay on 

Poetry, 310, 422. 
BURNABT [ft. 1703], 303. 
Byron, George Gordon, Lord 

[1788-1824], 93, 251. 

Caius Marius, History and Fall 
of, Otway's, 302, 304, 422; bal- 
cony scene in, 324. 

Caractacus, Mason's, 246, 252, 
255, 429. 

Caroline, Queen [1683-1737], on 
Shakespeare's women, 371, 372. 



Cartwright, William [1611- 
1643], 297. 

Case is Altered, Jonson's, 25, 26. 

Castle of Otranto, Walpole's, 
144, 430. 

Catiline, Jonson's, 32, 144, 242. 

Cato, Addison's, 426 ; Dennis on, 
59, 426 ; Voltaire on, 184. 

C^NiE, Madame de Grafigny's, 198. 

Centlivre, Mrs. Susannah [1667 ?- 
1723], 45, 71, 300,425,426. 

Cervantes Saavedra, Miguel de 
[1547? -1616], 282, 289. 

Chapelain, Jean [1595-1674], 2.33. 

Chapman, George [1559 ?-1634], 
38. 

Chesterfield, Philip Dormer 
Stanhope, Earl of [1694-1773], 
63, 80, 131, 191, 192, 198, 211, 
218, 317, 34.5, 3.54, 371, 372. 

Chorus, the ancient, in modern 
plays, adopted by Milton, 243 ; 
advocated by Roscommon, 243 — 
by Rymer, 243 — by Francklin, 
245 — by Hurd, 245, 254 — by 
Duncombe, 245 ; denounced by 
Dennis, 244 — by Walpole, 245 
— by Colman, 253 — by Gray, 
254 ; Mason's attempt to intro- 
duce it, 246-255. 

CiBBER, Colley [1761-1757], 195, 
197, 302, 314-317, 319, 323, 424, 
427, 428. 

CiBBER, Theophilus [1703-1758], 
315. 

Cinthio (Giovanni Battista Gi- 
raldi) [1504-1573], 290. 

Clarissa, Richardson's, 410. 

Cleomenes, Dryden's, 57,153,423. 

Cleone, Dodsley's, 72, 429. 

Cleopatra, Daniel's, 206, 215; 
account of, 24. 

Cleveland, John [1613-1658], 34. 

Clive, Mrs. Catharine [1711- 
1785], 207, 428. 

CoBBETT, WiUiam [1762-1835], 
361. 



438 



INDEX 



Coleridge, Samuel Taylor [1772- 
1834], 388. 

CoLMAN, George [1732-1794], 68, 
89, 139, 174, 212, 218, 252, 253, 
321, 364, 365, 394, 432 ; his alter- 
ation of Lear, 309, 312, 430; his 
translation of Terence, 213, 214, 
430. 

Columbus, Morton's, 73, 434. 

Comic Drama of the Restora- 
tion, 257-259. 

Comical Gallant, Denais', 303, 
358, 425. 

Companion to the Playhouse, 
319, 430, 432. 

Complete Art of Poetry, Gil- 
don's, 275, 426. 

Congreve, William [1670-1729], 
121, 158, 269, 273, 339 n, 424. 

Conquest of Granada, Dryden's, 
344, 357, 420. 

Conquest of Mexico, Dryden's, 
2.33, 419. 

Cooke, Thomas [1703-1756], 409, 
427. 

Cooke, William [ft. 1775], 62, 431. 

Corneille, Pierre [1606-1684], 76, 
80, 92, 224, 267, 300, 346, 359, 
366. 

Correspondents, The, 373, 431. 

Coventry, Francis [Jl. 1751], 
227 n. 

Cowley, Abraham [1618-1667], 
229. 

Cowper, William [1731-1800], 212. 

Cromwell, Victor Hugo's, 14. 

Crowne, John [Ji. 1665-1698], 
357 ; his alterations of Shake- 
speare, 302, 309, 368, 422; on 
Shaliespeare, 345. 

Cumberland, Richard [1732- 
1811], his alteration of Timon, 
311, 318; the Mysterious Hus- 
band of, 157, 220, 432 ; on Shake- 
speare, 346. 

Cursory Remarks on Shake- 
speare, Taylor's, 167, 431. 



Dacier, Andre' [1651-1722], 252. 
Daniel, Samuel [1552-1619], 24, 
25, 206, 215. 

D'Arblay, Frances (Burney) 
[1752-1840], 360. 

D'Avenant, Sir William [1606- 
1668], 229, 263, 330; alteration 
of Macbeth, 302, 303, 307, 421 ; 
of The Tempest, 287, 302, 305, 
420 ; his Law against Lovers, 
302, 304, 307, 420. 

Davideis, Cowley's, 229. 

Davies, Thomas [1712 ?-1785], 
164, 165, 312, 433. 

Dekker, Thomas [1570?-1640?], 
39. 

Delany, Mrs. Mary [1700-1788], 
199. 

Denham, Sir John [1615-1669], 2. 

Dennis, John [1657-1734], 225, 
239, 283, 286, 288, 329, 345, 361, 
409, 423, 424, 425, 426; account 
of, 271-275 ; on Addison's Cato, 
59, 426 ; alteration of Coriolauus, 
195, 301, 403, 411, 427 ; of Merry 
Wives of Windsor, 303, 358, 425 ; 
on the chorus, 244, 284; on 
poetic justice, 403, 404, 407, 
408; on tragi-comedy, 137, 159; 
on the unities, 58-60. 

Dialogues of the Dead, Lyttel- 
ton's, 156, 429, 

Disbanded Officer, The, 89, 433. 

Dissertations, Moral and Crit- 
ical, Beattie's, 64, 432. 

Dissertation on Ancient Trag- 
edy, Francklin's, 245. 

DiSTREST Mother, Philip's, 67, 
426. 

Dodington, Bubb, see Melcombe. 

DoDSLEY, Robert [1703-1764], 72, 
429. 

Domestic Tragedy, 222. 

Don Sebastian, Dryden's, 57, 153, 
402, 423. 

Dorset, Charles Sackville, Earl of 
[1638-1706], 282. 



439 



INDEX 



Douglas, Home's, 429; Scotch 
opinion of, 349, 350. 

DowNES, John [/. 1662-1710], 
303, 425. 

Dramatic Miscellanies, Davies', 
164, 312, 433. 

Drummond, WiUiam, of Hawthorn- 
den [1585-1649], 1, 4, 5. 

Dkyden, John [1631-1700], 70, 
136, 137, 151, 153, 197, 216, 240, 
241, 258, 265, 268, 273, 283, 309, 
330, 339, 347, 357, 363, 376, 422, 
423 ; his All for Love, 95, 97-99 ; 
his alteration of the Tempest, 
287, 302, 305, 420 ; of Troilus and 
Cressida, 301, 302, 421 ; on poetic 
justice, 402, 405 ; his relations 
with Rymer, 232, 233, 283, 285 ; 
on Sliakespeare, 269, 271, 283, 
340, 344, 355 ; on tra<^i-comedy, 
135, 136, 159 ; on the unities, 42, 
47, 48, 56, 57. 

DuFFETT, Thomas [Jl. 1675], his 
Mock-Tempest, 302, 306, 421. 

DcKE OF GniSE, Dryden and 
Lee's, 57, 422. 

Ddke of Lerma, Sir Robert How- 
ard's, 47, 420. 

Ddnciad, Pope's, 275, 316. 

DoNCOMnE, William [1690-1769], 
245, 427. 

DuRFEY, Thomas [16.53-1723], 
his alteration of Cymbeline, 194, 
302, 368, 422, 

Earl of "Warwick, Fraucklin's, 
45, 68, 430. 

Eastward Ho, Chapman, Jonson 
and Marston's, 38. 

Edgar, Rymer's, 277, 285, 421 ; 
account ol 239-241. 

Electra, Sophocles', 139, 244. 

Elements of Criticism, Kames', 
51, 430. 

Elements of Dramatic Criti- 
cism, Cooke's, 62, 431. 

Elfkid, Hill's, 71, 426. 



Elfrida, Mason's, 248, 252, 254, 
255, 428. 

Elmerick, Lillo's, 219, 427. 

English, their reputation for cru- 
elty, 201-203. 

Epicene, Jonson's, 33. 

Epilogue, in English plays, 44. 

Ernani, Victor Hugo's, 100. 

Essay of Dramatic Poksy, Dry- 
den's, 135, 265, 420. 

Essay on the Genius and Writ- 
ings of Shakespeare, Dennis', 
403, 407, 426. 

Essay on Falstaff, Morgaun's, 
376, 432. 

Esther, Racine's, 243, 251. 

Eugenia, Francis's, 139 n, 197, 
198, 428. 

Euripides, 139, 143, 244, 286, 346, 
366. 

Evelyn, John [1620-1706], 293. 

Every Man in his Humor, Jon- 
son's, 19, 313; examined, 123- 
125 ; observance of unities in, 27, 
28, 103. 

Every Man out of his Humor, 
Jonson's, 103; observance of 
unities in, 29-31, 32, 33. 

Fairy Queen, The, 302. 

Falkener, Sir Everard [1684- 
1758], 190. 

Fall of Mortimer, Jonson's, 32. 

Farquhar, George [1 678-1 707], on 
the dramatic unities, 49, 56, 90, 
104, 425. 

Feltham, Owen [1602?-1668], 35. 

Female Characters in Shake- 
speare, 369-375. 

Female Quixote, Mrs. Lennox's, 
289. 

Fielding, Henry [1707-1754], 427 ; 
on Gibber's alterations, 314 ; on 
the dramatic unities, 50, 51, 90. 

Fletcher, John [1579-1625], 2, 
174, 297, 348 ; popularity during 
Restoration period, 42, 262, 265- 



440 



INDEX 



267, 277, 381 ; his Sea Voyage 

coutrasted with the Tempest. 

391. 
Florio, John [1553?-1625], 12. 
FcEDERA, Ryiiier's, 227. 
FooTK, Samuel [1720-1777], 428 ; 

ou the dramatic uuities, .50. 
Fo.\, Charles James [1749-1806], 

ou Hamlet, 347. 
Fr.\ncis, Philip [1708?-1773], 139, 

198, 428. 
Franc KLIN, Thomas [1721-1784], 

45, 68, 245, 430. 
French Academy, 41, 65, 168, 

169, 359. 
FcLLER, Thomas [1608-1661], 103. 

Gamester, Moore's, 219, 428. 

Gammer Gcrton's Needle, 23. 

Garrick, David [1717-1779], 45, 
66, 193, 199, 200, 318, 346, 363, 
380,381; his alteration of Ham- 
let. 161-173; his Lear, 312, 
313, 321. 

Gentleman's Journal, Mot- 
teux's, 282, 423. 

Geoffrey of Monmouth [llOO?- 
1154], 406. 

George Barnwell, Lillo's, 218, 
427. 

George III. on Shakespeare, 
360. 

Gifford, William [1756-1826], 
27 n. 

Gildon, Charles [1665-1724], 238, 
270, 271, 272, 329, 340, 358, 370, 
423, 424, 426; account of, 275, 
287 ; his alteration of Measure 
for Measure, 303, 307, 425 ; on 
poetic justice, 408 ; relations 
with Rymer, 285, 286 ; on Shake- 
speare, 229, 286, 287, 360, 361 ; 
on tragi-comedy, 136, 137. 

Glasse, George Henry [1761- 
1809], 246. 

Glover, Richard [1712-1785], 200, 
428. 



Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von 
[1749-1832], on the dramatic 
unities, 93. 

Goldsmith, Oliver [1728-1774], 
51, 125,360,431 ; on Shakespeare, 
346-348. 

Goxdibert, D'Avenant's, 229. 

GoRBODuc, Sackville and Nor- 
ton's, 20. 

Grafigny, Madame de [1695- 
1758], 198. 

Gravediggers' scene in Ham- 
let, 106, 141-143, 154, 162, 164, 
166, 169. 

Gray, Thomas [1716-1771], 208, 
246, 247 ; on the chorus, 253, 254. 

Greene, Robert [1560 7-1592], 22, 
385. 

Hallam, Henry [1777-1859], 231. 
Hamburgische Dramaturgie, 

Lessing's, 75, 87. 
Hanmer, Sir Thomas [1677-1746], 

60 n. 
Hardy, Sir Thomas Duffus [1804- 

1878], 227 n. 
Hawkesworth, John [1715?- 

1773], his alteration of Oronooko, 

158, 429. 
Hawkins, William [1722-1801], 

his alteration of Cymbeline, 

317, 429. 
Haylev, William [1745-1820], 211, 

218, 246, 432. 
Henslow, Philip [d. 1616], 26, 27. 
Higgons, Bevil [1670-1735], 331. 
Hill, Aaron [1685-1750], 71, 426. 
Historical Register for the 

Year 1736, Fielding's, 314, 427. 
Histriomastix, Dekker's, 39. 
Hoadley, John [1711-1776], 164, 

166; his additions to Hamlet, 

171. 
HoDSON, William \fl. 1780], 63 n, 

431. 
Home, John [1722-1808], his Agis, 

349, 429 ; his Douglas, 350, 429. 



441 



INDEX 



Homer, Pope's and Tickell's trans- 
lation of, 276. 
Horace, 54, 55, 245, 253, 254, 282, 

422, 428. 
Howard, Hon. James [Jl. 1662- 

1674J, 303, 309. 
Howard, Sir Robert [1626-1698], 

419, 420; on tragi-comedy, 137; 

on tlie unities, 47, 48. 
Hughes, John [1677-1720], 381. 
Hugo, Victor iVIarie [1802-1885], 

14, 100. 
Hume, David [1711-1776], 64, 

131 ; on Home's Douglas, 350 ; 

on Shakespeare, 352, 353. 
Hunter, Joseph [1783-1861], 394. 
HURD, Richard [1720-1808], 254, 

428; on the chorus, 245, 254. 

Iliad, translations of the, 275. 

Impartial Critic, Dennis', 284, 
423. 

Ingratitude of a Common- 
wealth, Tate's, 302, 422. 

Injured Princess, Durfey's, 302, 
422. 

Inquiry, etc.. Goldsmith's, 346. 

Interlocking of scenes, 256. 

Invader of his Country, Den- 
nis', 195, 301, 403, 427. 

Invincible Armado, Rymer's, 
285. 

Iphigenia, Dennis', 58, 272, 425. 

Iphigenia in Tauris, Euripides', 
139. 

Iphigenib, Goethe's, 94. 

Irving, Henry [1838- ], 320. 

Jane Shore, Rowe's, 362, 426. 
Jeffrey, Francis [1773-1850], 59, 

93. 
Jephson, Robert [1736-1803], 69, 

432. 
Jeronimo, Kyd's, 180, 181. 
Jew of Venice, Lansdowne's, 302, 

425 ; account of, 329-338. 
Johnson, Samuel [1709-1784], 64, 



75, 192, 290, 291, 366, 389, 390; 
on poetic justice, 410; on tragi- 
comedy, 137, 156, 157, 162 ; on 
the dramatic unities, 54, 55, 62, 
70, 87, 90, 91, 101, 102, 104, 130. 

JONSON, Benjamin [1573?-1637], 1, 
2, 3, 4, 8, 15,40,47, 119, 144, 174, 
180, 181, 184, 256, 262, 264, 267, 
296, 340, 348, 353, 364, 381, 382, 
385 ; on the chorus, 242 ; Every 
Man in his Humor examined, 
123-125; on the unities, 19, 22, 
23, 25-40, 102; his Vol pone ex- 
amined, 82-86. 

Junius Brutus, Duncombe's, 245, 
427. 

Kames, Henry Home, Lord [1696- 

1782], 62, 430; on the dramatic 

unities, 51-54. 
Kean, Edmund [1787-1833], 309. 
Keate, George [1729-1797], 365. 
Kemble, John [1758-1822], 72, 

173. 
Kenrick, William [1725?-1779], 

66 n. 

Lacy (Lacey), John [d. 1681], 302, 

368, 424. 
La Motte, Antoine Houdart de 

[1672-1731], 42. 
Lansdowne, George Granville, 

Lord [1667-1735], his alteration 

of Merchant of Venice, 302, 319, 

425 ; compared with original, 

328-338. 
La Place, Pierre Antoine de 

[1707-1793], 80, 203, 428. 
Law against Lovers, D'Ave- 

nant's, 302, 304, 307, 420. 
Law of Lombardy, Jephson's, 69, 

432. 
Lee, Nathaniel [1653?-1692], 57, 

422. 
Leir, King, 406. 
Le Moyne, Pierre [1602-1671], 

233. 



442 



INDEX 



Lennox, Mrs. Charlotte [1720- 
1804], 192, 429, 430 ; account of, 
289, 292. 

Leonidas, Glover's, 200. 

Lessing, Gottliold Kphraim [1729- 
1781], 75, 76, 82, 120, 366, 384, 
432 [433] ; English estimate of, 
87-90; on the unities, 53, 77-81 , 90. 

Le Tourneur, Pierre [1736-1788], 
168, 374. 

LiLLO, George [1693-1739], 218, 
219, 220, 427. 

Little French Lawyer, Fletch- 
er's, 174. 

Lloyd, Robert [1733-1764], 212, 
213. 

Lope de Vega [1562-1635], 43. 

Love, in the ancient and the mod- 
ern drama, 110-114; intrudes 
into tragedy, 116, 129,223; dif- 
ficulty of its treatment while ob- 
serving the unities, 120-128 ; not 
distinction between the classical 
and romantic dramas, 223-226 ; 
prominent in alterations of 
Shakespeare's plays, 309-313. 

Love Betrayed, Burnaby's, 303. 

Love for Love, Congreve's, 121, 
424. 

Love's Contrivance, Mrs. Cent- 
livre's, 300, 425. 

Love's Victim, Gildon's, 371, 425. 

Lyly, John [15541-1606], 22. 
Lyons Mail, Reade's, 320. 
Lyttelton, George, Lord [1709- 
1773], 156, 373, 429. 

Macattlay, Thomas Babington, 

Lord [1800-1859], 227. 
Macklin, Charles [1697?-1797], 

319. 
Macready, William Charles [1793- 

1873], 319, 321. 
Madan, Mrs. Judith (Cowper) 

[1702-1781], 363. 
Maid of Honor, Massinger's, 72, 

73. 



Maid's Tragedy, Beaumont and 

Fletcher's, 230. 
Maiden Queen (Secret Love), 

Dryden's, 42, 56, 420. 
Malone, Edmund [1741-1812], 

27 n, 101. 
Marixi (or Marino), Giambattista 

[1569-1625], 233. 
Marlowe, Christopher [1564- 

1593], 22, 216. 
Marmontel, Jean Frangois [1723- 

1799], 168. 
Marston, John [15757-1634], 38. 
Mason, William [1724-1797], 169, 
428, 429 ; his attempt to restore 
the chorus, 246-255. 
Massinger, Philip [1583-1640], 72, 

73, 174, 212. 
Mayne, Jasper [1604-1672], 35. 
Melcombe, George Bubb Doding- 

ton. Lord [1691-1762], 208. 
Men^echmi, Plautus', 108, 118. 
Meres, Francis [1565-1647], 26, 

184. 
Milton, John [1608-1674], 41, 
208, 230, 272, 342, 420; on the 
degradation of tragedy, 143-145 ; 
introduces the chorus, 243, 246, 
251 ; on Shakespeare, 2. 
Mine, Sargent's, 246, 4.33. 
Minna von Barnhelm, Lessing's, 

89 [433]. 
Mock Marriage, Scott's, 58, 424. 
MoLiiiRE, Jean Baptiste Poquelin 

[1622-1673], 92, 300. 
MoNBODDO, James Burnett, Lord 

[1714-1799], 350. 
Montagu, Mrs. Elizabeth [1720- 

1800], 340. 
MoNTESQUiEu[1689-1755],371,372. 
MooRE, Edward [1712-1757], 219, 

220, 428. 
More, Hannah [1745-1833], 350. 
Morgan, McNamara [d. 1762], 72, 

429. 
MoRGANN, Maurice [1726-1802], 
376, 431. 



443 



INDEX 



Morton, Thomas [1764?-1838], 73, 
434. 

MoTTEUx, Peter Anthony [1660- 
1718], 282, 423. 

Mdrphy, Arthur [1727-1805], 192, 
200. 

MiTSEs' Looking-glass, Ran- 
dolph's, 23. 

Mysterious Husband, Cumber- 
land's, 157, 220, 432. 

Nathan der Weise, Lessing's, 

88, 432. 
New Foundling Hospital for 

Wit, 167 n, 433. 
Non-Juror, Gibber's, 316, 427. 
Northern Lass, Broome's, 40. 

Observations on Hamlet, 141, 

428. 
CEdipe, Voltaire's, 42, 225, 252. 
Oronooko, Southerne's, 139, 424 ; 

altered by Hawkesworth, 158, 

429. 
Orrery, John Boyle, Earl of 

[1707-1762], 192, 290. 
Otway, Thomas [1652-1685], 347, 

350, 370 ; his use of Romeo and 

Juliet, 302, 304, 324. 

Papal Tyranny, etc.. Gibber's, 

314, 316, 428. 
Paradise Lost, Milton's, Dennis 

on, 272; Rymer on, 229. 
Pbele, George [1558-1597], 22. 
Pepys, Samuel [1633-1703], 307; 

on the English theatre, 260, 261 ; 

on Shakespeare, 263. 
■ Pers^, iEschylus', 285. 
Perplexed Lovers, Mrs. Gent- 

livre's, 45, 426. 
Phaeton, Gildon's, 408, 424. 
Phelps, Samuel [1804-1878], 308, 

320, 321. 
Philaster, Beaumont and Fletch- 
er's, Golman's alteration of, 139, 

364, 430. 



Philips, Ambrose [1675 ?-1749], 
67, 426; his Pastorals, 276. 

Phillips, Edward [1630-1696?], 
342, 421. 

Philoclea, Morgan's, 72, 429. 

Philoctetes, Sophocles', 204. 

Philotas, Daniel's, 25, 215. 

Phipps, Hon. Henry [1755-1831], 
73 n. 

Plautus, 4, 108, 111, 112, 117, 
118, 213. 

Plot and no Plot, Dennis', 58, 
424. 

Poetaster, Jonson's, 39. 

Poetic justice, doctrine of, 222, 
308, 401-417. 

PoMPEY the Little, Coventry's, 
227 n. 

Pope, Alexander [1688-1744], 3, 
59, 157, 192, 231, 240, 271, 
275, 276, 287, 316; on Shake- 
speare's repute, 377, 378. 

Progress of Poesy, Mrs. Mad- 
an's, 363. 

Prologue, in English plays, 44. 

Promos and Cassandra, Whet- 
stone's, 18, 19, 102, 215. 

Prose in tragedy, 212, 218-220; 
in comedy, 211. 

QUINTILIAN, 283. 

Rabelais, Francois [1495 7-1553], 

282. 
Racine, Jean Baptiste [1639-1699], 

67, 76, 80, 92, 224, 249, 300, 346, 

349, 366 ; introduces the chorus, 

243, 251. 
Raleigh, Sir Walter [1552 ?-1618], 

340. 
Ram Alley, Barry's, 38. 
Rambler, Johnson's, 54, 137. 
Randolph, Thomas [1605-1635], 

23. 
Rapin, Rene' [1621-1687], 229, 233 ; 

on English fondness for blood, 

201 ; on love in tragedy, 224. 



444 



INDEX 



Easpe, Rudolf Eric [1737-1794], 

88, 432. 
Ravensckoft, Edward \_fl. 1671- 
1697], his alteration of Titus 
Audrouicus, 196, 300, 302, 422. 

Reade, Charles [1814-1884], 320. 

Reed, Isaac [1742-1807], 166, 169, 
172. 

Rehearsal, Mrs. Clive's, 207, 428. 

Remarks on Hamlet, 60, 427. 

RiccOBONi, Lodovico [1677-1753], 
203. 

RiCHAKDSON, Samuel [1689-1761], 
410. 

Richardson, William [1743-1814], 
64, 431, 433 ; on Shakespeare, 
152 ; on Shakespeare female 
characters, 374, 375. 

Rivals, Sheridan's, 121, 430. 

RocHESTEU, John Wilmot, Earl of 
[1648-1680], 330, 

Rogers, Samuel {Ji. 1764], 364. 

RoLLO (The Bloody Brotlier), 
Fletcher's, 402. 

Romano, Giulio (Pippi) [1492- 
1546], 106. 

Rome Sauvee, Voltaire's, 147, 225. 

Roscommon, Wentworth Dillon, 
Earl of [1633 ?-1685], 191, 422; 
on the chorus, 243, 244. 

Roscius Anglicanus, Downes's, 
303, 425. 

RowE, Nicholas [1674-1718], 286, 
287, 358, 362, 369, 425, 426 ; on 
Shakespeare's female characters, 
371 ; on poetic justice, 403. 

Rtme, attempt to discard from 
English verse, 7 ; in comedy and 
tragedy, 211, 216, 217. 

Rtmer, Thomas [1641-1713], 202, 
204, 225, 271, 272, 275. 290, 360, 
370, 403, 421, 423; account of, 
227-233; on the chorus, 243; 
his critical views, 234-239, 241 ; 
his Edgar, 239-241, 421; on 
poetic justice, 402, 407 ; on Shake- 
speare, 276-286, 288, 343. 

445 



St. Evremond [1613-1703], 267, 
283, 423 ; on the English tjtieatre, 
189, 190, 203. • 

St. James's Magazine, 208, 2' 3- 

Sa.mson Agoxistes, Miltop^s, 41, 
143, 243, 420. 

Sargent, John [fi. 1788], 246, 433. 

Sawney the Scot, Lacy's, 302, 
368, 424 

School of Compliment, Shir- 
ley's, 264, 419. 

Scornful Lady, Beaumont and 
Fletcher's, 174. 

Scott, Thomas [Jl. 1 696], 58, 424. 

Scott, Sir Walter [1771-1832], 
231, 239 ; on the dramatic unities, 
70, 97. 

Sea Voyage, Fletcher's, 205 ; com- 
pared with the Tempest, 391. 

Secret Love, or the Maiden 
Queen, Dryden's, 42, 420. 

Sedley, Sir Charles [16391-1701], 
135, 136, 345, 368. 

Sejands, Jouson's, 31, 144, 242. 

Selden, John [1584-1654], 34. 

Selimus, 187, 215. 

Semiramis, Voltaire's, 225. 

Seneca, 23, 24. 

Shadwell, Thomas [1642 ?-1692], 
420; his alterations of Shake- 
speare's plays, 302, 310, 330; on 
the unities, 46. 

Shakespeare, William [1564- 
1616], Estimate of, by Blair, 348 

— by Chesterfield, 345, 354 — by 
Cobbett, 361— by Colman, 364 

— by Crowne, 345, 357 — by 
Cumberland, 346 — by Dennis, 
284, 286, 345, 358, 361 — by 
Dryden, 344— by Fox, 347-— 
by George III., 360 — by Gildon, 
285-288, 345, 361— by Gold- 
smith, 346-348 — by Hume, 349, 
351-3.53 — by Keate, 365 — by 
Mrs. Lennox, 289-292 — by Mrs. 
Madan, 363 — by Rogers, 364 — 
by Rowe, 362 — by Rymer, 276- 



INDEX 



284, 343 — by J. Warton, 345; 
his fondness for quibbles, 147, 
386 ; his indifference to anachro- 
nisms, 385 ; his plays plundered 
without acknowledgment, 368 ; 
his 

All's Well that Ends 
Well, revived by Giffard, 
388; plot considered, 389- 
391. 

Antony and Cleopatra, de- 
scribed, 95-97. 

As You Like It, 369; Dr. 
Johnson on, 411. 

Comedy of Ekrors, 108, 118. 

CoRiOLANUs, altered by Tate, 
195,300,302,422; by Dennis, 
159, 195, 301, 427 ; criticised 
by Dennis, 403, 411 ; obser- 
vation of poetic justice in, 
403. 

Cymbeline, 312; altered by 
Durfey, 194, 302, 368, 422; 
altered by Hawkins, 317, 
429. 

Hamlet, 60, 107 n, 293, 314, 
384 ; alteration of, by Gar- 
rick, 161-173, 314; Charles 
James Fox on, 347 ; Pepys 
on, 263 ; unities disregarded 
in, 13. 

Henry IV., altered by Bet- 
terton, 302; borrowed from 
by Gibber, 323; Pepys on, 
263. 

Henry V., defence of roman- 
tic drama in, 103-105. 

Hen'ry VI., altered by Crowne, 
302, 309, 357, 368, 422. 

John, King, alteration of, by 
Gibber, 314, 317, 428. 

Julius C^sar, 147, 373; al- 
tered by Duke of Bucking- 
hamshire, 310; criticised by 
Rymer, 278, 279. 

Lear, King, 187,236; its re- 
lation to poetic justice, 405- 

446 



415 ; Tate's alteration of, 
139, 194, 300, 302, 309, 313, 
319, 409, 422 — described, 
325-328 — condemned by 
Addison, 406 — approved by 
Dennis, 407, by Gildon, 408, 
by Dr. Johnson, 410 — his 
introduction of love-scenes 
into, 117, 311-313 ; Colman's 
alteration of, 309,312,430; 
revival of original by Mac- 
ready, 321 —by Phelps, 321 ; 
unities disregarded in, 13. 

Love's Labor 's Lost, unities 
in, 100 n, 101 n. 

Macbeth, 373; art of, 188, 
235 ; D'Avenaut, alteration 
of, 302, 303, 307, 421 ; Gildon 
on, 270; Pepys on, 263, 307 ; 
poetic justice observed in, 
415-418; revival of original 
by Phelps, 308 ; unities dis- 
regarded in, 13. 

Measure for Measure, 214 ; 
alteration of, by D'Avenant, 
302, 304, 307, 420 ; alteration 
of, by Gildon, 288, 303, 307, 
424. 

Merchant of Venice, Lans- 
downe's alteration of, 302, 
319, 425 — described, 328- 
333 — compared with origi- 
nal, 333-338; Macklin's res- 
toration of original to stage, 
319. 

Merry Wives of Windsor, 
123, 214, 222, 369; altera- 
tion of, by Dennis, 303, 358, 
425. 

Midsummer Night's Dream, 
altered into an opera, 302; 
Pepys on, 263. 

Much Ado about Nothing, 
214 ; borrowed from, by 
D'Avenant, 304. 

Othello, 373; art of, 188; 
early popularity of, 281 ; 



INDEX 



never altered, 162; Pepys 
on, 263 ; Rymer on, 277 - 
281, 290, 360; unities disre- 
garded in, 13. 
Pericles, 242. 

Richard II., Tate's alteration 
of, 302, 422 ; reasons given 
for alterations, 159, 241. 
Richard III., 235; Gibber's 
alteration of, 302, 314, 319, 
424 — character of alteration, 
195, 323; revival of orig- 
inal by Macready, 319 — by 
Phelps, 320— by Irving, 320 
— by Booth, 320. 
Romeo and Juliet, 312; al- 
tered into tragi-comedy by 
Howard, 303, 309; Gildon 
on, 360; Lessing on, 120; 
Pepys on, 263; use of by 
Otway, 302, 304, 422 — his 
version of balcony scene 
compared with original, 324. 
Taming of the Shrew, 222 ; 
alteration of, by Lacy, 302, 
368, 424 ; Pepys on, 263 ; 
comparison of, with Fletch- 
er's Woman's Prize, 266. 
Tempest, 345, 369 ; alteration 
of, by D'Avenant and Dry- 
den, 287, 302, 420 — its char- 
acter, 305 ; alteration of, by 
Duffett, 302, 306, 421 ; con- 
verted into an opera by 
Shadwell, 302; its art, con- 
trasted with Fletcher's Sea 
Voyage, 391 ; observance of 
unities in, 108-110, 126-128. 
Timon, alteration of by Shad- 
well, 302, 310, 421; altera- 
tion by Cumberland, 311, 
318,431. 
Titus Andronicus, 180; al- 
teration of, by Ravenscroft, 
196, 300, 302, 422 ; its char- 
acter, 184-186; its genuine- 
ness, 184. 



Troilus and Cressida, 340; 
Dryden's alteration of, 301, 
302, 405,421. 
Twelfth Night, 24, 369; 
Burnaby's alteration of, 303 ; 
Pepys on, 263. 
Winter's Tale, 108, 242; 
disregard of rules in, 22, 
105-107, 110. 
Shakespeare Illustrated, Mrs. 

Lennox's, 429 ; described, 290. 
Shakespeare's Dramatic Char- 
acters, Richardson's, 152, 374, 
433. 
She Stoops to Conquer, Gold- 
smith's, 125, 431. 
Sheridan, Richard Brinsley [1751- 

1816], 121,431. 
Shirley, James [1596-1666], 262, 

264 [419]. 
Short View of Tragedy, 

Rymer's, 277-284, 423. 
Sicilian Usurper, Tate's, 302, 

422, 
Sidney, Sir Philip [1554-1586], 7, 
104, 340; on tragi-comedy, 149; 
on the dramatic unities, 20. 
Silent Woman, Jonson's, 174. 
Sister, Mrs. Lennox's, 291, 430. 
Smith, Adam [1723-1790], 350. 
SoFONiSBA, Trissino's, 17. 
Soliman and Perseda, 182. 
Sophocles, 139, 286, 346, 349, 366 ; 

chorus in, 244. 
SouTHERNE, Thomas [1660-1746], 

158, 424, 429. 
Spanish Curate, Fletcher's, 174. 
Spanish Friar, Dryden's, 139, 

159 n, 422. 

Spanish Tragedy, Kyd's, 182, 

184, 185, 186; character of, 181. 

'Sparagus Garden, Broome's, 40. 

Spence, Joseph [1699-1768], 231, 

271, 349. 
Spenser, Edmund [1552?-1599], 

7, 24, 229, 340. 
StatiUS, 233. 



447 



INDEX 



Stekle, Sir Richard [1672-1729], 
on the dramatic unities, 67. 

Steevens, George [1736-1800], 
101, 166; encourages Garrick in 
altering Hamlet, 162, 16.3. 

Sullen Lovers, Shadwell's, 46, 
420. 

Swift, Jonathan [1667-174.5], 192. 

Swinburne, Algernon Charles 
[1837-], 123, 124. 

Tasso, Torquato [1544-1595], 233. 
Tate, Nahum [1652-1715], 330; 

his alteration of Coriolanus, 195, 

300, 302, 422 ; of Lear, 139, 194, 

300, 302, 319, 325-328, 406, 409, 

411, 422; of Richard II., 159, 

241, 302, 422. 
Taylor, Edward [d. 1797], 167, 

168,431. 
Terence, 4, 111, 112, 213, 430. 
Theatrum Poetarum, Phillips', 

342, 421. 
Theobald, Lewis [1688-1744], 101. 
Theocritus, 276. 
Thomson, James [1700-1748], 158. 
Thornton, Bonnell [1728-1768], 

212, 213. 
TiCKELL, Thomas [1686-1740], 276. 
Tom Jones, Fielding's, 51. 
Tragedies of the Last Age, 

Rymer's, 234-239, 277, 281, 421, 

423. 
Trissino, Giovanni Giorgio [1478- 

1550], 17. 
Two Connoisseurs, Hay ley's, 211, 

432. 
Tyrannic Love, Dryden's, 56, 

420. 

Unities, doctrine of, defined, 8-11 ; 
attributed to Aristotle, 16 ; intro- 
duced into modern plays by Tris- 
sino, 17 ; championed in England 
by Jonson, 22, 25; controversy 
about, in Elizabethan age, 1 8-25 ; 
controversy about, after the Res- 



toration, 40-44, 47 ; decadence of 
belief in, 71-74; views on, of 
Dryden, 47, 56 — of Sir Robert 
Howard, 47 — of Farquhar, 49 — 
of Foote, 50 — of Fielding, 51 — 
of Kames, 51-54 — of Dr. John- 
son, 54-56— of Dennis, 57-60 — 
of Upton, 61— of Webb, 61 — 
of Cooke, 62 — of Bcrkenhout, 62 
— of Richardson, 64 — of Blair, 
64 — of Beattie, 64 — of Baretti, 
64 — of Belshani, 65— of Sir 
Richard Steele, 67 — of Colman, 
68 — of Jeplison, 69 — of Sir 
Walter Scott, 70 — of Lessing, 
74-82, 87 — of Byron, 93 — of 
Goethe, 93 — of Jeffrey, 93. 

Upton, John [1707-1760], 61, 428; 
on Shakespeare's female charac- 
ters, 372. 

Vergil, 233, 246, 276. 

Vicar of Wakefield, Gold- 
smith's, 347. 

Victor, Benjamin [d. 1778], 170. 

VoLPONE, Jonson 's, 33 ; observance 
of unities in, 82-86. 

Voltaire (Frangois Marie Ar- 
ouet) [1694-1778], 19, 62, 65, 75, 
129, 142, 145, 168, 175, 201, 245, 
248, 251, 256, 280, 340, 345, 351, 
365 ; on bloodshed on the stage, 
190; on love in tragedy, 225 ; on 
ryme in French plays. 216; on 
Shakespeare, 102, 131, 184, 281 ; 
on tragi-comedy, 147 ; on the 
dramatic unities, 42, 130; Les- 
sing on, 82, 87. 

Waller, Edmund [1606-1687], 
330. 

Walpole, Horace [1717-1797], 
169, 208, 245, 430; on tragi- 
comedy, 144, 156. 

Warton, Joseph [1722-1800], on 
Lear, 394 ; on love in tragedy,, 
226 ; on Shakespeare, 345. 



448 



INDEX 



Webb, Daniel [ft. 1762], 61, 430. 

Whetstone, George [1544'?- 
1587?], 20, 102, 215; on tragi- 
comedy, 149; on the unities, 18, 
19. 

Whitk, Richard Grant [1821- 
1885], 100. 

WiELAND.Christoph Martin [1733- 
1813], 76. 

Wild Gallant, Dryden's, 197, 
258, 420. 



Wilkinson, Tate [1739-1803], 170, 

433. 
Woman's Prize, Fletcher's, 266. 
Wtcherlet, William [1640?- 

1716], 273. 

YooNO, Edward [1683-1765], 158. 

Zaire, Voltaire, 190. 
ZoRAiDA, Hodson's, 63 n, 432. 



29 



449 



OCT 12 1901 






(J 



^ ^r\r-A 




^^0^ ■^^siia''^ "^-o^ 




^Ao^ 







lN^ 



v^^°- V 



•^^c 



c'o v>i. 






0^.^11^-.%. (f.'''j^^^.%_ oo^o_^;i:^% 













./ 










y J 



^^ 






./:s^-^ 




^^0^ 










-V -^ 



'^^O^ 






*^^^^^- 



^ ^^ 



' "' ^ "^ -'^I'°^'<' '^ Z' "^ ' Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process V 

'■■ V^« A^ *'jA^^/k." "^ A^ ^'^rix'^^ Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide "Q^n 



' ^ ^ <# % ^'^P^-^ # % '^' « PreservationTechnologies vS 

s^ -iG^ ^ '.^-W-^^x ^f. t? ,^jmO A WORLD LEADER IN COLLECTIONS PRESERVATION ^^ 

' ' ^O^ >, » o , "V^^ '«<■■> i;^ s » * ^ <> ■" '" Thomson Park Drive -^ ^ 

> G ^^ .o,^ '^ '*?6 C"^ '..'^ ^/r^ ** "^ Cranberry Township, PA 16066 ^^ 

U. <. .^'J^^^.' %-. .. ^\0&^'\ -t^ (724)779-21,1 ,^^ 



V"-^"/ V-'%/^ vX^,Va/ V^— ^ 













"-^ ^' ^^ -/..«o.%-'^^ <f.^^..%^'^-^ V<^^o/%^°'^ 



X.^^ 









^ 



^Q. 



, ^ , X * \^^ 93, 















%.** 









■^ 



"^AO^ 









x.*^.-; 



^AO'* 









.# ... <. 



,s^^^ 



